THE  ROBERT  E.  COWAN  COLLECTION 

runs!  N  i  i:i>    ii>    nn: 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

C.  P.  HUNTINGTON 

JUNE.    1897. 


Accession  Nc 


Class 


J 


it  ft 


m* 


/W. 


ARMADUKE     JENVER 


D 


AND  OTHEB  STOEIES. 


BY 


MARY   G.    MAHONY. 


SAN   FRANCISCO: 
WOMEN'S  CO-OPERATIVE  PRINTING  OFFICE, 

1887. 


Entered  according  to   Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1887,  by 

MARY  G.  MAHONY 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


The  author  offers  this  little  collection  of  stories  to  her  friends 
with  a  sincere  apology.  Firstly,  because  some  of  them  have  been 
published  before  in  the  columns  of  the  newspapers,  and  secondly, 
because  I  am  compelled  to  reproduce  them  in  this  shape — by  stern 
necessity.  I  seek  neither  name  nor  fame,  but  that  which  is  much 
dearer  to  me  than  either,  your  friendly  forbearance  and  kindly 
consideration.  M.  G.  M. 


OF  T»» 

TJNIVERSITT 


CHAPTER  I. 

It  was  the  sweet  season  of  buds  and  blossoms;  the  fra 
grant  hawthorn  breathed  a  generous  largess  of  perfume 
through  the  soft  spring  air  and  had  already  begun  to  spread 
a  gorgeous  carpet  of  pink  and  white  petals. 

In  the  orchard  at  Redwood  Farm  two  young  people 
were  seated  beneath  a  hoary-looking  apple-tree  whose 
gnarled  limbs,  speckled  with  grey-white  moss  gave  it  a 
patriarchal  eminence  among  its  more  youthful  companions. 
From  their  Titian-like  parent  sprang  vigorous  young  shoots 
which  triumphantly  spread  forth  a  lavish  load  of  satiny 
blossoms. 

Florence  Denver  was  a  rosy-cheeked  girl  of  some  fifteen 
summers,  plump  and  healthy  and  sunburnt,  but  full  of 
promise  of  the  glorious  fruit  of  beauty  which  was  sure  to 
follow  this  healthy  blossoming.  The  soft,  smooth  skin  was 
tinged  with  a  pink  hue  which  seemed  to  come  from  the 
great  rose  in  each  cheek;  the  somewhat  large  mouth  was 
clear  cut  and  expressive,  and  the  full  eyes  seemed  to  have 
borrowed  their  color  from  the  shifting  hues  of  the  sky — 
so  changeable  were  they,  now  light,  now  dark  blue — eyes 
that  would  be  capable  of  expressing  every  emotion. 

The  boy  at  her  side  was  so  very  boyish  and  awkward, 
that  an  observer  would  never  have  lingered  to  bestow  a 
second  glance  upon  him.  A  man  in  the  chrysalis  state — 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


if  we  may  so  call  it — is  rather  an  uninteresting  creature  at 
best,  while  the  pretty  caterpillar  which  promises  the  lady 
butterfly,  has  usually  more  attractions  of  color  and 
contour. 

Harold  Hereford  was  so  obviously  unfinished,  so  crude 
from  nature's  mould,  that  it  would  be  almost  cruel  to 
describe  him  at  this  period  of  his  existence,  so  far  was  he 
from  having  yet  "  filled  the  measure  of  youth."  Added 
to  his  other  disadvantages,  he  had  just  developed  the 
uncertain  and  certainly  unmusical  squeak  which  heralds 
the  transition  from  the  voice  of  boyhood  to  a  manly  base. 
In  a  word,  our  readers  must  take  Master  Hereford  on 
trust — as  we  can  promise  nothing  nor  prophecy  much  for 
such  a  piece  of  unleavened  earth,  and  a  present  estimate 
of  him  can  only  be  gathered  from  his  conversation  with 
Florence  Denver  beneath  the  apple-tree,  and  hencefor 
ward  by  watching  his  career  up  and  down  the  ladder  of 
life  which  lay  before  him. 

"And  so  you  are  going  away  to  college,  Hal,"  said  the 
girl  at  his  side,  "and  I  sha'n't  see  you  for  ever  so  long," 
and  she  gathered  the  falling  blossoms  into  her  lap  with  a 
sigh. 

"  And  you  will  be  going  to  boarding-school,"  he  replied 
somewhat  ruefully,  "and  you  will  soon  forget  all  about 
me." 

"Oh,  I'll  be  sure  to  miss  you,  Harold,"  she  answered, 
laughing  at  his  lugubrious  expression.  "  You  see  I  have 
known  you  such  a  long  time  I  can't  forget  you." 

Her  reasons  for  remembering  him  did  not  seem  to 
afford  him  much  comfort,  for  he  looked  at  her  reproach 
fully,  and  swallowed  an  imaginary  something.  That  he 
was  very  fond  of  his  playmate  ever  since  the  period  of 
mud  pies,  was  a  fact  of  about  as  much  consequence  to 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


her  as  the  affection  of  her  favorite  dog,  but  when  he 
produced  from  its  many  wrappings  of  paper,  a  photograph 
of  himself,  and  presented  to  her  very  solemnly,  the  girl's 
eyes  filled  with  tears. 

They  had  known  each  other  since  childhood,  and  he 
had  seemed  as  necessary  a  part  of  her  life  as  her  pet  dog 
or  most  cherished  toy,  and  she  felt  that  she  would  miss 
him  as  such.  Childlike  they  sat  there  and  mapped  out 
their  garden  of  life,  as  though  they  alone  were  the  sole 
and  supreme  gardeners,  and  as  if  there  would  be  no  adverse 
winds  to  disturb  the  flowers  therein. 

A  sudden  breeze  sent  down  a  shower  of  blossoms  upon 
them,  which  lodged  in  her  hair,  and  nestled  in  the  folds 
of  lace  upon  her  bosom.  She  laughingly  bent  her  head 
towards  the  boy  that  he  might  pick  them  out,  and  while 
doing  so  he  touched  her  hair  sofily  and  reverently  with 
his  lips. 

With  many  good-byes — tender  and  sorrowful  on  his 
side — they  parted  at  the  orchard  gate,  and  as  the  grateful 
incense  of  supper  floated  out  upon  the  evening  a^ir,  our 
heroine  soon  forgot  all  about  love  and  lovers.  Such  is 
extreme  youth — in  love. 

Florence  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  wealthy  Farmer 
Denver,  who  had  leavened  a  handsome  farm  out  of  the 
primitive  prairie,  which  had,  after  years  of  toil,  yielded 
him  a  generous  recompense,  and  now,  at  a  hale  and  hearty 
period  of  his  life,  he  relegated  the  responsibility  to  his  two 
growing  sons. 

To  farmer  Denver's  mind,  the  education  of  boys  should 
consist  merely  of  "readin',  'ritin',  and  'rithmetic," — any 
thing  else  he  deemed  superfluous  nonsense.  <;If/had 
gone  to  college,"  he  was  wont  to  say,  "  and  learned  Greek 
and  Latin,  and  other  darned  dead  langwidges,  I  would  be 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


just  one  of  them  good-for-nothing  fops  as  can  spend  mor'n 
they  can  earn."  This  was  his  final  clincher  to  any  argu 
ment  on  the  subject,  and  the  only  concession  his  wife  could 
obtain  in  this  matter  was  the  promise  of  a  tutor  who  should 
be  sternly  cautioned  against  imparting  any  of  his  city  non 
sense  to  his  boys. 

Upper-ten-dom  was,  in  William  Denver's  honest  estima 
tion,  an  artificial  structure,  whose  veneering  was  often  of 
the  thinnest  and  cheapest  kind,  and  he  found  much  of  the 
grandeur  of  life  in  the  green  glory  of  his  crops  and  their 
rich  ripeness,  wrought  by  the  peaceful  plowshare.  His 
great  heart,  unwarped  by  conventionalism,  was  guileless  and 
generous,  and  knew  naught  or  the  shallow  artifices  of  the 
effete  elegante.  He  held  the  soft-clothed  city  man  in  sub 
lime  contempt,  and  eventually  fell  into  the  very  venial 
sin  of  judging  them  all  from  one  standpoint — hence  his 
stubborn  antipathy  to  what  he  considered  superfluous  edu 
cational  and  ornamental  acquirements. 

The  pink  and  white  petals  of  the  blossoms  had  hardly 
withered  among  the  long  grasses  in  the  orchard  when  the 
delicate  little  mistress  of  the  farm  sickened,  and  in  one 
week  the  patient  hands  were  folded  in  placid  resignation 
over  the  dead  heart. 

Twenty  years  before  Hattie  Wilberforce  had  left  her 
refined  home  in  a  great  city,  and  married  "  Wild  Will 
Denver,"  her  handsome,  uneducated  country  cousin. 

She  had  always  been  delicate,  and  her  being  so  seemed 
to  make  her  all  the  more  dear  to  the  strong,  healthy 
husband,  and  he  had  been  as  tenderly  kind  to  her  as  if 
she  had  been  a  little  child,  in  all  those  twenty  years. 

Her  death  was  a  cruel  stroke  to  him,  now  when  fortune 
had  given  them  the  wherewithal  to  make  their  declining 
years  still  happier.  The  little  wife  had  never  grown  old  in 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


his  eyes,  and  in  his  bereavement  he  thought  of  her  only  as  the 
blithe,  blue-eyed  girl,  who  had  left  a  higher  sphere  to  share 
his  uncertain  lot,  for  love  of  him. 

They  saw  but  little  of  him  for  many  days,  and  when  he 
came  again  amongst  them  the  brown  hair  was  thickly 
streaked  with  white,  and  the  feebleness  of  old  age  had 
suddenly  come  upon  him. 

The  summer  had  nearly  gone  and  the  leaves  had  turned 
to  gorgeous  hues  of  crimson  and  gold  before  things  had 
resumed  their  wonted  course  at  the  farm. 

William  Denver  had  made  a  solemn  promise  to  the  dead 
wife,  as  he  kissed  her  white  lips  for  the  last  time,  and  he 
was  going  to  fulfill  it  as  an  act  of  reparation,  which  was 
sacredly  due.  To  send  her  two  boys  to  college  had  been 
one  of  Mrs.  Denver's  dearest  wishes,  and  it  was  the  only 
wish  in  which  he  had  ever  decidedly  opposed  her;  but 
now  there  was  a  great  uprooting  of  many  old  hobbies  in 
the  farmer's  mind,  and  a  gradual  awakening  to  the  con 
sciousness  that  his  whole  life  had  been  devoted  to  the 
science  of  money  getting,  to  the  exclusion  of  many  higher 
or  nobler  objects.  Now  that  his  gentle  wife  had  left  him, 
to  think  and  judge  alone,  he  found  himself  looking  at 
matters  with  her  eyes,  and  thinking  with  her  thoughts  about 
many  things,  but  particularly  of  the  future  of  the  children. 

In  due  time  the  two  boys,  Milton  and  Duke,  were  sent 
to  school  to  a  distant  city,  Florence  being  sent  to  a 
boarding  school.  Soon  after  the  farmer  found  himself  alone 
with  his  grief,  which  became  even  more  poignant  when  his 
little  five-year-old  girl  toddled  from  her  nurse's  care  to 
nestle  in  his  arms. 

Five  years  had  passed  away  leaving  their  meed  of  joys 
and  sorrows.  Gently  they  had  touched  the  farmer's  head, 
silvering  more  of  the  brown  hair;  lovingly  had  they  dealt 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


with  his  children — bringing  rare  beauty  to  the  faces  and 
forms  of  his  girls,  and  magnificent  manliness  to  his  boys. 
Florence's  vacations  were  seasons  of  unmeasured  delight  to 
the  youthful  Kataline  and  her  father,  and  he  longed  for 
the  time  when  Florence  would  be  the  guiding  angel  of  his 
house,  and  in  a  measure  fill  the  void  in  his  heart. 

A  perfect  picture  of  beauty  was  the  little  Kataline  whose 
sunny,  blue  eyes  and  tangled  mass  of  sunny  hair  made  a 
rare  picture  of  lovely  childhood. 

And  now  arose  a  new  necessity  in  the  farmer's  house 
hold;  this  "wee  lamb"  was  fast  freeing  herself  from  the 
shackles  of  the  nursery,  and  the  prospect  of  sending  her 
away  to  school  was  so  distasteful  to  the  farmer's  widowed 
heart,  that  he  put  it  off  as  long  as  possible  and  compro 
mised  the  matter  for  the  present  by  advertising  for  a  gover 
ness  who  should  make  her  home  with  them. 

A  few  days  later  the  Lefton  Herald  announced  the 
fact  that  a  "  lady  teacher  would  find  a  comfortable  home 
at  Redwood  Farm." 

Later  on  during  that  day  the  advertisement  became  an 
important  theme  of  discussion  between  two  ladies,  the 
occupants  of  a  dingy  lodging  in  the  cheapest  part  of  the 
city  of  Lefton. 

"  Do  you  feel  strong  enough  to  undertake  it,  Madeline  ? 
queried  the  older  of  the  two  ladies  in  question,  with  anxious 
solicitude  in  her  face,  and  a  quavering  note  of  apprehen 
sion  in  her  voice.  "I'm  afraid  the  doctor  will  not  allow 
you." 

"  But  it  is  to  the  country,  mother;  going  to  the  country  is 
a  very  different  thing."  Her  voice  was  full  of  a  feverish 
entreaty.  "  I  want  the  country  air;  it  would  do  me  all 
the  good  in  the  world.  The  city  feels  like  a  prison  to  me. 
Pray  let  me  try  it,  mother." 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


Madeline  Grey's  face  was  almost  ghost-like  in  the  inten 
sity  and  transparency  of  its  pallor.  A  long  and  terrible 
illness  had  left  cruel  marks  of  suffering  upon  face  and 
form,  and  the  mother's  heart  sank  within  her  as  she  gazed 
upon  her  stricken  child  whose  life  had  been  blighted  in  its 
very  prime. 

After  a  long  and  anxious  consultation,  it  was  decided 
that  Madeline  should  try  the  position  thus  offered,  iff  spite 
of  broken  health  and  bruised  heart,  for  the  widowed 
mother  was  dependent  upon  this  slender  reed  for  susten 
ance. 

She  had  written  to  Farmer  Denver,  and  two  days  after 
she  was  seated  beside  him  in  the  comfortable  spring  cart 
which  he  had  almost  filled  with  cushions  and  coverings  to 
render  the  thirty  miles  of  rugged  country  road  as  comfort 
able  as  possible. 

William  Denver  lifted  the  slight  form  in  his  arms,  and 
his  touch  was  almost  of  a  womanly  tenderness  as  he 
wrapped  her  around  with  shawls  and  rugs,  nor  did  he  for 
one  moment  stop  to  consider  her  apparent  want  of  strength 
for  the  duties  of  her  position;  in  his  kindly  heart  there  was 
only  tenderness  and  solicitude  for  her  comfort. 

Madeline  Grey  was  almost  silent  during  the  long  drive, 
but  her  eyes  became  brighter  and  a  faint  tinge  of  color 
stole  into  the  pallid  cheeks.  The  pure  country  air  was 
already  doing  its  work,  and  a  great  breath  of  thankfulness, 
a  wordless  prayer  welled  silently  up  from  the  weak  heart, 
as  her  eyes  feasted  upon  the  majestic  stretches  of  moun 
tain  and  wooded  valleys.  The  air  was  filled  with  the 
glorious  incense  of  clover  and  ripened  hay,  making  a  grand 
tribute  of  fruitful  nature  to  its  Creator.  In  all  this  there  was 
to  her  an  indescribable  sense  of  rest,  a  very  numbness  of 
quiet  pleasure  that  barred  out  every  thought  of  aught  else 


8  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

save  peace,  to  soul  and  body,  and,  if  a  wish  could  creep  in,  it 
would  be  that  this  driving  thus  might  go  on  forever,  through 
such  scenes  as  these,  an  unending  but  peaceful  and 
beautiful  day-dream. 

The  evening  shadows  were  lengthening  when  they  reached 
the  farm;  the  great  house  dog  barked  sleepily  without  open 
ing  his  eyes,  and  wagging  a  lazy  welcome  to  his  master, 
again  resumed  his  slumbers. 

For  the  first  time  in  her  life  the  little  Kataline  almost 
ignored  the  presence  of  her  father,  and  clinging  to  the  new 
governess  held  up  her  mouth  to  be  kissed. 

Farm  life  seemed  to  agree  with  the  world-worn  woman 
whose  apparent  youth  contrasted  strangely  with  her  shat 
tered  health  and  sad  demeanor.  There  was  a  settled, 
despairing  sort  of  sadness  in  her  dark  blue  eyes  which  gave 
her  a  spiritual  expression;  her  cameo-like  features  were 
almost  severe  in  their  classical  contour,  and  in  repose  were 
cold  and  rigid  as  marble. 

William  Denver  was  no  connoisseur  of  character,  nor 
was  he  in  the  least  a  diviner  of  the  depths  and  recesses  of  a 
woman's  heart.  His  was  not  a  nature  to  search  beneath 
the  surface  for  materials  to  form  his  opinions  about  things 
or  people.  The  method  of  calculation  by  which  he  had 
arrived  at  a  satisfactory  conclusion  with  regard  to  Mrs. 
Grey  must  have  been  a  short  and  simple  one.  He  was 
pleased  with  her,  and  would  as  soon  think  of  uprooting  a 
beautiful  flower,  which  was  an  unquestioned  pleasure  to  him, 
to  look  for  suspected  unsightliness  at  its  root,  as  to  probe 
or  pry  into  the  hidden  feelings  of  people  who  pleased  him, 
much  less  this  silent  woman  who  seemed  intent  only  upon 
doing  her  duty. 

That  Mrs.  Grey  was  a  widow,  with  a  mother  dependent 
upon  her  for  bread  was  all  that  he  knew,  and  that  much 
was  sufficient  to  enlist  his  warmest  sympathy. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


Kataline  improved  rapidly  under  her  tuition,  and  the 
girl's  attachment  to  her  beautiful  governess  grew  stronger 
every  day. 

Little  improvements  were  soon  visible  through  the  house, 
and  when  Florence  came  home  during  her  customary  vaca 
tion,  she  was  at  first  inclined  to  shed  tears  over  some  of  the 
deposed  ornaments — cherished  of  her  childhood — which 
were  replaced  by  dainty  little  miracles  in  needle-work,  and 
exquisite  "bits"  in  pencil  which  modestly  usurped  their 
places. 

"  Papa  has  got  a  governess  for  sister  Kataline,"  wrote 
Florence  to  her  brother  Duke,  "and  she  looks  like  the 
picture  of  a  saint,  but  a  very  sad  one.  You  could  not  help 
thinking  that  she  must  have  seen  something  that  once 
frightened  her  very  much,  and  that  she  has  never  forgotten 
it.  I  know  what  you  will  want  to  do  when  you  see  her. 
You  will  want  to  paint  her  picture,  but  if  you  could  leave 
the  great  sorrow  out  of  her  eyes,  Duke,  you  would  surely 
fall  in  love  with  your  picture,  like  that  poor  sculptor  that 
fell  in  love  with  his  beautiful  statue.  I  wish  you  could  see 
her.  Come  soon.  Love  to  Milton,  from 

SISTER  FLORENCE  " 

About  the  same  time  Madeline  Grey  wrote  the  following 
to  her  mother:  "  I  am  far  happier  here  than  I  had  ever 
dared  to  hope.  I  seem  to  think  that  the  things  which  you 
and  I  dread  cannot  enter  here — as  well  might  lightning 
flash  from  a  clear  sky.  There  is  only  one  clanger  threaten 
ing  my  peace  now — it  is  the  home-coming  of  those  young 
men,  which  I  hope  will  be  deferred  a  long  time.  I  have 
seen  their  pictures,  and  one  is  oh,  so  like — but  I  must  not 
think  of  this.  Your  child, 

MADELINE." 


CHAPTER   II. 

Duke  Denver,  whose  proper  name  was  Marmaduke, 
had  developed  some  taste  as  an  artist,  while  at  school,  and 
had  been  sent  to  Italy  to  prosecute  his  studies.  Milton, 
the  oldest,  became  an  enthusiastic  student  of  theology, 
and  so  the  vocation  of  the  two  young  men  seemed  to  be 
decided. 

Milton's  letters  from  college  were  prayerful,  pious  things, 
as  became  an  embryo  churchman,  and  Duke's,  from  Flor 
ence,  were  brimful  of  life's  pleasures,  "much  of  which 
maybe  found,"  he  wrote,  "  in  fair  Florence,  that  wonderful 
treasury  of  books,  pictures  and  music."  Roseate,  glowing 
letters  they  were,  yet  boyish  and  light  as  the  foam  of  an 
effervescing  draught. 

Harold  Hereford  had  become  a  clever  doctor  of  medi 
cine,  and  his  visits  to  the  farm  were  numerically  like 
to  those  of  the  angels.  How  matters  progressed  between 
him  and  Florence  will  be  learned  in  a  future  chapter. 

One  magnificent  street  in  Naples,  fronts  the  Bay  for  miles, 
and  commands  many  superb  views.  The  shifting,  opali?tic 
colors  assumed  by  the  waters,  the  weird  and  varied  lights 
and  shadows  born  of  the  voluptuous  Neapolitan  evenings, 
and  the  beautiful  as  well  as  grotesque  shapes  presented  by 
Mount  Vesuvius  contribute  inexhaustible  treasures  to  the 
poetic  and  artistic  student. 

Duke  Denver  and  his  companion,  a  young  Frenchman, 
had  somehow  managed  to  secure  an  attic  in  one  of  the 
houses  in  this  favored  locality,  which  he  had  likened  in 
letters  "  to  an  obscure  corner  in  heaven." 

Those    magnificent    Neapolitan  nights — and    they    are 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  II 

seldom  otherwise — can  lull  one's  senses,  wine-like,  to  a 
dreamy  languor.  No  one  ever  desires  to  stay  indoors 
after  sunset.  Duke  and  his  brother  artist  were  lounging  in 
the  easiest  possible  attitude,  too  luxuriously  lazy  even  to 
talk.  Smoking,  under  the  circumstances,  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  would  have  required  a  supreme  effort,  which, 
in  their  pleasant,  sublime  state  of  ease,  would  be  closely 
akin  to  labor. 

The  Frenchman  was  the  first  -to  break  the  silence. 
"  Monsieur  Denver,  what  have  you  done  with  your  little 
model,  that  pretty  Calabrian  child  of  last  year  ?" 

"Oh,  gone  back  to  her  tribe,  I  suppose/'  replied  Duke, 
raising  his  arms  languidly  and  folding  them  softly  upon  his 
bosom,  "  or,  maybe,  found  a  lover  among  the  enterprising 
heroes  of  the  Abruzzi." 

"  A  haughty  elf  she  was,  too,"  continued  the  French 
man.  k'I  tried  to  kiss  her  one  day,  but  she  flung  herself 
out  of  my  reach  and  flashed  a  look  of  anger  at  me  that 
would  have  done  credit  to  an  abbess,  though,  by  my  faith, 
there  are  dozens  of  fine  dames  who  would  not  flaunt 
Peirre  Lacroix — aye  dozens." 

Duke  was  not  evidently  pleased  with  his  friend's  remarks 
for  he  vouchsafed  no  further  comment,  but  turned  his 
thoughts  to  the  pretty  Sicilian  girl  of  whom  he  had  made 
a  sketch  the  year  before — a  waif  whose  gypsy-like  face 
came  sometimes  into  his  dreams.  She  was  one  of  the 
people  who  whined  in  the  usual  Neapolitan  fashion  for 
alms,  but  she  sang  for  hers,  and  there  was  rare  melody  in 
her  plaintive  voice  that  gained  her  more  money  than  her 
poverty  could  have  done. 

A  pretty  face  is  no  rarity  among  the  Sicilian  street 
singers,  and  artists'  models  with  faces  and  forms  of 
marvelous  beauty  were  as  plenty  in  that  "  City  of  Sanctity," 


12  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

as  "leaves  in  Vallembrosa;"  even  in  the  highest  ranks 
can  be  found  fair  dames  who  will  graciously  condescend  to 
pose  for  a  satisfactory  remuneration.  Yet  above  and 
beyond  all,  the  modest  peasant  child  retained  a  higher 
place  in  his  thoughts,  and  her  sweet  voice  like  the  dreamy 
music  of  an  ^Eolian  harp,  often  floated  pleasantly  through 
his  memory. 

He  had  hoped  to  see  her  again  when  he  returned  to 
Florence,  and  he  longed  again  to  hear  her  voice,  which 
seemed  to  harmonize  with  the  soft  twilight,  blending  her 
plaint  for  alms  with  songs  of  love,  whose  import  she  was 
all  too  young  to  understand. 

There  are  surely  many  small  byways  as  well  as  highways 
to  the  human  heart,  and  it  is  often  reached  by  strangely 
devious  paths  that  are  unknown  to  us  and  unguarded; 
little  things  often  impel  us  with  a  strength  that  is  at  once 
subtle  and  supreme.  Duke  did  not  know  which  was  the 
strongest  power  that  made  him  long  so  much  to  visit 
Florence  again.  It  might  be  a  chain  of  many  different 
links,  but  he  did  not  know  the  peasant  girl  was  a  link  as 
strong  as  any  of  the  others. 

Duke  Denver's  life  had  been  soft-gliding  and  placid  as 
a  stream  without  a  ripple;  he  had  passed  into  manhood  in 
unconscious  possession  of  all  the  boyish  traits  and  buoyant 
hopefulness  that  belong  to  youth,  and  he  felt  as  happy  in 
his  unpretentious  atelier  in  Naples,  as  a  man  whose 
future  was  assured. 

"  I'm  getting  tired  of  Naples,  Pierre, "he  said  at  length, 
"  let  us  go  back  to  Florence,  again." 

"You  must  be  surely  dreaming,  Marmaduke,"  replied 
his  friend.  "  Why,  we  are  not  here  a  month  yet,  and  you 
longed  so  much  to  come  here." 

"I  like  Florence  better,"  replied  Duke,  illogically,  and 
he  relapsed  again  into  meditation. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  13 

"Very  well,  mon  ami,  you  shall  go,  you  shall  have  your 
whim,  if  you  really  mean  it.  When  would  you  like  to  go, 
mon  comrade^  To-morrow? 

"  Yes,  to-morrow,"  repeated  Duke,  brightening. 

"  Hurrah  !  "  responded  the  cheerful  Frenchman.  "  To 
morrow,  then,  we  are  en  voyage  again,  and  /  shall  not 
unpack  my  valise  when  I  get  there  until  you  manage  to 
get  a  little  more  backbone  into  your  present  weak  reso 
lutions." 

"  Merci"  said  Duke  with  a  languid  smile,  "you  are  a 
cherub,  Pierre." 

Pierre  Lacroix  liked  the  young  American,  who  had  an 
unconscious  knack  of  winning  his  way  into  many  hearts, — 
his  frank,  boyish  blue  eyes  could  look  the  whole  world  in  the 
face — making  good  people  pause  to  give  him  a  hearty  hand 
shake,  and  compelling  the  other  kind  to  feel  ashamed  of 
themselves. 

Pierre  Lacroix  was  a  veritable  Bohemian,  good-natured 
as  he  was  reckless.  He  had  conceived  an  intense  liking 
for  Duke,  chiefly  because  the  young  American  was  his  op 
posite  in  almost  everything.  Among  innumerable  other 
French  adjectives  he  called  him  "  his  ballast,"  "his  buoy 
and  anchor,"  and  in  pathetic  moods  "  his  guiding  angel." 

He  would  have  gone  cheerfully  to  the  end  of  the  world 
with  Duke,  and  would  then,  as  he  expressed  it,  "hang  on 
by  a  peg  to  the  outer  edge  for  the  pleasure  of  his  com 
pany." 

The  next  day  saw  them  en  route  for  Florence. 

A  lovely  landscape  flitted  past  the  hurrying  train  like  a 
panorama;  the  low,  grassy  hills  were  dotted  daisy-like  with 
little  white  cottages;  the  glowing  orchards  and  trim 
hedges,  looking  almost  artificial  in  their  neat  regularity, 
presented  an  unrivalled  picture  of  peace  and  beauty. 


14  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

They  were  fortunate  enough  to  find  apartments  in  the 
old  locality  and  soon  found  themselves  comfortably  housed. 

Duke  had  spent  a  year  in  Florence  and  had  made  many 
friends  there.  The  day  after  their  arrival  invitations  poured 
in  upon  them  from  many  old  acquaintances,  but  the  Prin 
cess  de  Carillo's  card  was  by  far  the  most  important  in 
Pierre  Lacroix's  estimation.  The  Princess  was  as  popular 
in  Italy  as  a  queen  might  be  in  her  own  dominion;  her 
power  was  potent  in  political  intrigues,  and  her  wealth  al 
most  fabulous.  She  was  a  woman  without  a  particle  of 
beauty,  and  yet  whom  to  know  was  to  love,  and  whose 
slightest  favor  could  draw  men  down  upon  their  knees — 
aye,  almost  to  death.  "A  dangerous  siren" — so  said  the 
world.  To-night  her  gorgeous  salon  in  Florence  was  a 
veritable  fairyland  of  light,  and  music,  and  flowers. 

Our  young  artists  arrived  late  but  were  fortunate  enough 
to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  princess  who  was  leaning  upon  the 
arm  of  an  Austrian  Ambassador,  whose  very  evident  ad 
miration  seemed  to  weary  her.  A  smile  lighted  up  her 
face  when  she  recognized  the  two  young  artists. 

"  Mon  enfants,  how  good  you  are;"  (the  princess  was 
barely  twenty  and  invariably  assumed  a  maternal  air 
towards  the  young  men  of  her  acquaintance)  "  how  very 
good  of  you  to  come  and  see  a  tired  old  woman.  Seeing 
you  back  again,"  she  continued,"  is  so  pleasant;  it  is  like 
mending  a  broken  chain,  after  finding  two  of  the  lost  links 
again."  As  she  said  this  she  dismissed  his  Austrian  great 
ness  with  a  grace  and  sweetness  that  were  inimitable,  and 
then  motioning  the  two  young  men  to  a  divan  seated  her 
self  between  them. 

Duke,  as  might  be  expected,  was  not  much  of  a 
courtier;  his  tongue  could  form  no  such  honied  speeches  as 
her  ears  were  accustomed  to  hear,  and  yet,  strange  enough, 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  15 

in  this  very  defect  lay  his  greatest  charm  in  her  eyes.  The 
unsophisticated  American  was  a  novelty  to  her,  and  there 
was  positive  refreshment  in  his  out-spoken,  unstudied 
thoughts  and  unconventional  manner.  A  French  woman's 
life,  it  is  said,  revolves  upon  the  pivot  of  matrimony,  adu 
lation  and  flattery  being  two  of  the  most  important  levers 
in  the  matrimonial  machinery.  Up  to  a  certain  period 
Hortense  de  Carillo's  life  had  revolved  like  most  others  of 
her  sex,  and  then  she  was  married,  at  a  tender  age,  to 
a  man  who  was  older  than  her  father,  totally  unable  to 
discriminate  in  a  matter  about  which  she  was  scarcely 
consulted,  and  too  young  to  realize  what  love  meant. 

The  gorgeous  vista  pictured  to  her  by  a  marriage  with  a 
wealthy  old  man,  completely  satisfied  the  ambition  of  her 
untutored  school-girl  heart,  the  release  from  a  stern 
parental  rule  being  the  most  sublime  sort  of  emancipation 
in  a  French  girl's  mind.  This  was  what  she  felt,  standing  in 
the  fairy  portals  of  marriage,  when  the  voice  of  the  youthful 
heart  was  easily  stilled,  when  love  was  stifled  even  before 
its  birth,  and  then  she  was  whirled  into  the  vortex  of  a 
soulless,  gilded  life,  in  which  heart  and  conscience  held 
no  share. 

Hortense  de  Carillo  had  reeled  through  the  maze  but  a 
short  time  when  the  stifled  heart-cry  became  a  passionate 
plaint.  Her  husband,  a  blase  man  of  the  world,  had 
never  loved  her,  and  his  blunted  sin-gorged  sensibilities 
were  not  a  whit  disturbed  by  the  knowledge  that  she 
found  no  pleasure  in  his  society.  They  saw  but  little  of 
each  other,  and  she  was  free  to  amuse  herself  after  her  own 
fashion,  provided,  "  she  made  no  scenes,"  nor  eloped 
with  any  one. 

Surrounded  with  all  that  could  apparently  gratify  a 
woman's  senses — wealth  and  adoration — the  princess  was 


l6  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

restless  and  unhappy.  Satin  and  diamonds  cover,  alas  ! 
how  often,  a  starving  heart,  and  the  flashing  light  of  jewels 
can  never  warm  its  dreary  chambers. 

Without  the  sun  no  plant  can  be  healthy,  no  fruit  can 
ripen,  no  flower  can  gain  color  or  perfume,  nor  can  the 
human  heart  flourish  without  its  meed  of  sunshine — which 
is  love.  Denied  of  this  it  will  ever  crave  in  its  wordless 
language,  and  mutely  spread  out  its  golden  tendrils  eager 
to  twine  themselves  around  some  loved  object.  Alas  !  for 
the  poor  heart  whose  hunger  is  unappeased;  whose  still,  small 
voice  is  unheeded;  whose  tendrils  are  flung  back  to  shrink 
and  wither,  hiding  forever  their  dead  leaves  in  the  empty 
heart. 

Duke  had  been  telling  the  princess  about  his  pretty 
model  whom  he  had  found  in  Florence.  "  Mon  Dieu" 
murmured  the  princess  naively,  "how  I  wish  I  were  a 
peasant  girl,  with  soft  black  eyes  and  a  sweet  voice." 

She  sighed  naturally  enough  as  she  said  this,  and  bent 
her  brown  eyes  for  a  moment  upon  the  young  American. 

"And  you  would  console  yourself  with  a  lurking  hope  of 
some  King  Cophetua's  making  his  debut  at  the  proper 
time,"  laughed  Pierre  Lacroix,  as  he  twisted  the  ends  of 
his  mustache. 

"  You  must  let  me  see  that  picture  sometime,  Monsieur 
Denver.  I  am  quite  interested  in  your  gypsy  queen,"  said 
the  princess  lightly,  "and  I  hope  for  your  sake  that  she 
may  be  the  lost  heiress  of  someone  who  is  somebody;  and 
she  has  a  sweet  voice,  too,"  she  continued.  "  If  you  find 
her  again  be  sure  and  bring  her  to  me.  And  now, 
Monsieur,"  she  said,  rising,  her  billowy  lace  foaming 
around  her,  "  I  must  leave  you  ;  but  pray,  don't  forget 
my  request,  nay,  my  command  (this  with  mock  sternness)  to 
bring  the  child  to  me,"  and  with  a  charming  smile,  from 
which  a  thousand  sweet  regrets  shown,  she  left  them. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  17 

Hortense  de  Carillo's  face  was  not  one  to  attract  any 
notice,  if  one  did  not  happen  to  know  her.  The  small  face 
was  plain  almost  to  homeliness,  and  the  quiet  brown  eyes 
were  nearly  expressionless,  but  when  she  smiled — and  in 
that  lay  all  her  glory — her  lips  and  all  her  features  assumed 
the  most  bewitching  expression,  and  seemed  to  be  illumin 
ated  by  a  strangely  beautiful  light.  "  She  should  be  always 
smiling,"  said  many  of  her  admirers.  It  was  her  greatest 
power — a  force  that  brought  lovers  by  the  hundreds,  who 
forgot  their  allegiance  elsewhere  while  basking  in  the 
entrancing  atmosphere  which  this  woman  diffused  around 
her. 

It  is  difficult  to  analyze  the  heart,  to  arraign  its 
thousanis  of  varying  emotions  before  the  tribunal  of 
reason.  A  year  had  passed  since  she  had  first  met  Duke 
Denver,  with  his  boyish,  beardless  face,  and  artless  tongue, 
and  now  the  shackles,  golden  though  they  were,  that 
bound  her,  felt  cold  and  tight,  and  cruel  as  death,  and 
the  brave  religious  heart  that  had  hitherto  been  as  a  giant 
bulwark  against  dishonor,  was,  alas,  even  now  reaching  out 
its  weary  tendrils  towards  him. 

Duke  had  passed  into  manhood  without  losing  any  of 
his  boyish  fancies.  Before  he  was  seventeen  he  had  formed 
an  ideal  for  himself,  one  that  he  had  conceived  by  the  pure 
light  of  an  innocent  heart,  and  because  of  this  the  wiles 
and  witcheries  of  society  women  had  but  little  power  over 
him,  and  he  emerged  from  many  a  gorgeous  labyrinth  with 
his  beloved  ideal  graven  more  deeply  upon  his  honest 
heart. 

"  Let  us  go,  Pierre,  I  am  tired  of  the  salon,"  said  Duke, 
after  the  princess  had  left  them. 

"Certainly,  mon  ami,"  replied  the  other,  smiling;  "it 
is  only  a  dreary  desert  when  she  goes  away.  You  are 


I  8  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

right"  he  added,  "she  will  not  come  near  us  again  to-night. 
What  an  angel  she  is;  but  her  visites  resemble  theirs  a  little 
too  much.  A  lions  mon  enfant." 

In  truth,  Duke  was  not  thinking  of  the  princess  just 
then.  He  longed  to  get  back  to  his  rooms,  and  sit  upon 
the  pleasant  veranda  where  he  had  first  heard  the  sweet 
voice  of  the  peasant  girl  whose  face  had  often  come  to  him 
in  dreams. 

This  soft-eyed  child  of  the  Calabrias,  a  beggar  in  the 
streets  of  Florence,  had  a  face  which  an  empress  might 
stop  to  wonder  at,  and  when  she  sang  her  simple  chant  for 
alms,  there  were  few  indeed  who  did  not  pause  to  look  and 
listen. 

Trustfully  and  innocently  she  had  followed  Duke  to  his 
studio  one  day,  coming  again  and  again,  without  a  thought 
of  danger,  and  she  often  sang  for  him  when  her  voice 
seemed  a  part  of  the  twilight  and  the  evening  odors  of  the 
flowers,  while  her  great  eyes,  that  Fra  Angelico  would  have 
loved  to  paint,  tried  to  find  him  up  there  in  the  darkness 
upon  the  veranda. 

After  he  had  gone  to  Naples  she  had  come  there  night 
after  night,  not  knowing  that  he  had  gone,  and  when  at 
last  she  had  realized  that  he  was  no  longer  there,  she  sang 
from  house  to  house  through  the  whole  city,  caring  but 
little  for  the  coins  that  were  flung  to  her,  heedless  alike  of 
the  coarse  jokes  and  flatteries  which  were  still  more  lavish, 
hoping  to  find  him,  until  at  last,  weary  and  hopeless,  she 
went,  no  one  knew  whither,  perhaps  to  other  cities  to  look 
for  him,  for  she  had  already  made  of  her  simple  heart  a 
pedestal,  whereon  she  had  placed  him,  to  be  worshipped  in 
silent  and  sorrowing  reverence. 

The  rich  blood  of  Sicily  becomes  warmed  to  love's  tem 
perature  at  a  tender  age,  and  the  kindly  behaviour  of  the 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


young  American,  free  from  raillery  or  coarseness,  had 
reached  the  childish  heart — unlocking  it  all  too  soon — with 
its  hidden  treasures  of  love. 

Night  after  night  Duke  sat  and  listened  on  the  veranda, 
hoping  to  hear  her  again,  and  by  day  he  often  peered 
anxiously  among  the  groups  of  peasants  on  the  streets,  but 
he  never  found  her. 

"  She  will  find  you  some  day,  be  assured,"  the  princess 
had  said  to  him  one  evening,  "and  then  you  shall  make 
me  a  present  of  her,  and  some  day,"  she  added  thought 
fully,  "you  shall  hear  a  charming  singing  bird  whom  you 
shall  want  to  capture  for  yourself." 

"  What  a  romantic  web  the  princess  can  weave  around 
a  prosy  old  fellow  like  you,  Duke,"  laughed  Pierre  La- 
croix,  looking  at  Duke  in  mock  admiration. 

It  was  Duke's  habit  on  such  occasions  to  allow  his  friend 
full  scope  for  the  witty  and  polite  retorts  upon  which 
Pierre  prided  himself  not  a  little,  and  although  the  prin 
cess  laughed  good-naturedly  at  them,  she  never  failed  to 
look  expectantly  to  Duke  for  some  reply. 

"HI  remember  aright,"  said  Duke,  slowly,  "the  nymph 
or  siren  who  knitted  or  crochetted  those  mythical  materials 
was  called  "Daphne." 

"  Yes/'  suggested  Pierre,  "  something  that  begins  with 
a  D,  I  think." 

"Oh,  yes,"  chimed  in  the  princess  gayly,  "and  the 
materials  she  used  were  c  rays  of  sunshine/  and  'threads 
of  moonbeams  fringed  with  dewdrops  '  and  other  airy 
nothings." 

"  Oh,  but  madame  la  princess  would  need  some  stronger 
stuff  to  enclose  that  young  Hercules,"  said  Pierre,  pointing 
to  Duke.  "The  finer  web  might  do  for  me"  he  added, 
plaintively.  "  I'm  slight  and  tender ,"  "And  innocent 


20  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

as  a  child,"  interrupted  Duke,  with  a  genuine  American 
grin. 

"Oh,  golden  warp  and  silver  woof,"  sang  the  princess 
softly,  as  if  her  voice  was  away  in  the  distance,  and  a 
sudden  shade  of  sadness  came  into  her  face.  In  all  that 
gorgeous  maze  of  music  and  mirth,  and  the  perfume  of 
flowers,  her  heart  was  beating  heavily  and  becoming  more 
than  ever  conscious  of  its  terrible  void. 

She  arose  to  accept  the  arm  of  a  white-haired  old 
general,  who  claimed  her  for  the  waltz  which  was  just 
then  commencing. 

Duke  followed  her  with  his  eyes,  thinking  the  while 
how  pleasant  it  was  to  be  near  her,  and  listen  to  the  voice, 
which  had  such  lulling  power. 

There  was  an  indescribable  something  about  the  woman 
which  pleased  one  in  an  easy,  passionless  way — some 
thing  more  akin  to  the  nature  of  music  or  sunshine,  or  the 
pleasure  that  one  derives  from  the  presence  and  perfume 
of  flowers,  inspiring  the  reverence  that  one  might  feel  for  a 
thing  of  beauty  and  goodness. 


CHAPTER  III. 

About  this  time  the  fact  began  to  dawn  upon  Duke's 
lazy  imagination  that  he  was  becoming  a  hopeless  idler, 
purposeless  arid  indifferent.  He  roused  himself  just 
enough  to  wonder  at  it,  but  did  not  inquire  very  closely 
into  the  matter — it  is  not  easy  to  grasp  at  will — or  define 
the  oft-times  intangible  causes  of  our  failings  for  analysis. 
Duke  was  a  little  puzzled  about  it,  but  at  length  comfort 
ably  concluded  that  it  was  nothing  worse  than  the  inevitable 
ennui  that  one  is  sure  to  succumb  to  in  the  lazy,  luxu 
rious  indolence  of  an  Italian  climate.  But  he  was  ex 
ceedingly  conscientious,  and  deeming  himself  too  partial 
a  tribunal  to  be  arraigned  before,  complained  to  Pierre 
of  the  growing  inanity  which  was  besetting  him  of  late- 

Your  case  is  just  this,  mon  chere  enfant  "  replied  Pierre 
tenderly,  as  if  he  dreaded  to  hurt  some  sore  spot  on  Duke's 
mental  person.  "You  are  very  young.  Mon  Dieu!  hor 
ribly  young.  An  American  is  always  an  enfant  in  his  own 
land,  but  in  Paris,  Florence — Gods,  he  is  a  babe.  Then 
your  appetite  is  not  regulated  for  these  climates;  you  take 
over  much  wine  at  your  repast,  mon  frere" 

"  Wine,"  echoed  Duke,  staring  in  astonishment,  "you 
know  I  never  drink,  Pierre." 

"  Oh,  I  mean  your  banquets  of  pleasure,  your  feasts  of 
reason,  etc.;  your  sun-bathing  in  madame's  eyelight, 
the  wine  of  her  smiles.  You  are  a  glutton,  mon  chere,  a 
drunkard,  a-a — but  you  don't  know  it,  you  don't  know 
yourself,  you  are  a  babe,  you " 

"  Oh,  stop,  for  heaven's  sake!"  cried  Duke,  throwing  up 
his  hands  as  if  to  defend  himself  from  blows.  "  You  are  on 


22  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

the  wrong  track,  as  they  say  in  America,  and  that  eloquent 
peroration  of  yours  is  a  tissue  of  nonsense." 

"  I  will  prescribe  for  you,  I  will  save  you,"  cried  his 
friend,  tragically.  "  You  shall  be  more  moderate;  you  shall 
do  violence  to  your  weakness;  you  shall  live;  henceforth, 
thou  shalt  labor  with  thine  hands." 

"Yes,"  sighed  Duke,  flinging  the  end  of  a  cigar  away, 
"  but  you  talk  nonsense,  Pierre;  I  am  not  in  love  with 
anyone,  least  of  all  with  another  man's  wife." 

"  Of  course  not,"  replied  his  friend  calmly,  with  a  grin 
that  would  have  made  his  fortune  as  Mephistopheles; 
"  men  seldom  get  mad  in  a  minute,  or  drunk  in  a  moment. 
You  are  not  quite  poisoned  yet;  some  potions  work  slowly* 
but  they  £///all  the  more  surely." 

"  Nothing  so  common  as  that  hallucination  of  yours, 
dear  boy,"  Duke  retorted;  "you  are  the  one  who  is  in  love, 
and  think,  naturally  enough,  that  everyone  must  needs  see 
with  your  eyes." 

"Time  will  tell,"  responded  Pierre,  prophetically;  "  this 
air  is  my  native  element,  old  man,  and  you  can't  drown  a 
duck  in  water." 

"  Well,  granting  that  all  you  say  is  true,  what  would  you 
prescribe  for  the  sad  case  ?"  inquired  Duke.  "  What  shall  I 
do  that  I  may  be  saved  ?" 

"  Keep  away  from  the  salon  of  the  princess  for  a  month 
and  paint  something — me,  for  instance;  it  will  take  some 
bitumen,  but  the  exercise  is  good — try  it." 

"All  right,"  replied  Duke,  tilting  his  chair  back  and 
closing  his  eyes;  "  'tis  a  cruel  punishment,  but  it  is  some 
satisfaction  to  know  that  you  must  suffer  some  of  it." 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Duke  found  himself  medi 
tating  seriously.  In  this  shower  of  nonsense  which  his 
friend  had  jocosely  launched  upon  him,  he  seemed  to  feel 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  23 

a  slender  shaft  which  pricked  him  with  a  keen  sting.  The 
influence  of  his  simple  country  home  was  still  strong  upon 
him;  as  yet  there  had  been  nothing  in  his  life  to  awaken 
strong  emotions.  He  was  a  religious  man,  too,  and  a  will 
ing  prisoner  in  the  chains  with  which  the  Catholic  Church 
guards  the  passions  of  its  followers.  That  anyone  should 
suspect  him  of  being  in  love  with  a  woman  who  belonged 
to  another  was  inexpressibly  shocking  to  him,  when  put 
into  words.  Even  if  he  had  been  unconsciously  drifting  into 
a  liking  for  the  society  of  the  princess,  these  words  of 
his  friend  rudely  dispelled  any  self-illusive  shading  there 
might  have  been,  exposing  a  naked  and  hideous  fact,  and 
proved  him  by  the  light  of  his  own  conscience,  a  criminal) 
and  he  began  to  feel  like  a  man  who  had  just  been  dragged 
from  the  brink  of  a  dangerous  precipice.  Under  the  in 
fluence  of  these  feelings,  he  resolved  to  keep  away  from 
the  salon  of  the  princess,  and  at  least  disabuse  the  mind 
of  his  friend  of  this  monstrous  idea. 

More  than  a  month  had  passed  and  Duke  had  kept  his 
resolution  bravely.  His  abstinence,  as  Pierre  termed 
it,  was  not  as  easy  a  task  as  he  had  imagined,  though  they 
both  tried  to  "make  merry"  over  it,  and  Pierre  grimly 
intimated  at  times,  f '  that  it  was  hard  to  live  without  the 
light  of  the  sun."  There  was  more  truth  in  his  wit  than 
either  of  them  dreamed  of. 

It  had  been  an  unusually  warm  day  in  Florence,  and 
people  gladly  welcomed  the  evening  with  its  drowsy  hum 
of  softly  dying  noises,  which  lessened  gradually  until 
snatches  of  laughter  and  occasional  bursts  of  music  alone 
broke  the  stillness.  A  little  later  the  theatres  commenced 
to  pour  forth  their  throngs,  whose  merry  voices  and  laugh 
ter  sounded  wonderfully  distinct  through  the  still  air  of  the 
city. 


24  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

Our  two  young  artists  had  been  to  the  theatre  and  were 
elbowing  their  way  out  through  a  dense  crowd,  which  be 
gan  to  scatter  as  they  approached  the  Piazza  de  la  Signora. 
Here  a  good  many  people  paused  to  listen  to  a  serenade 
which  was  going  on  before  one  of  the  houses.  Duke 
Denver  stood  for  a  moment  to  listen,  and  then  started 
quickly  forward  as  he  recognized  a  well-known  voice. 
Pierre  tried  to  hold  him  back.  "Wait  'til  the  song  is 
over,"  he  said,  in  a  low  voice;  "then  we  will  find  her." 

The  crowd  listened  breathlessly  to  the  wildly-beautiful 
music  that  welled  up  from  those  untutored  peasant 

throats: 

In  Venice,  when  the  sinking  sun 
In  blushing  beauty  seeks  the  West, 
When  purple  shadows  softly  blend 
Their  colors  with  the  deep  blue  sea, 
A  sound  comes  stealing  near  and  near, 
Until  it  rests  within  my  heart, 
And  of  its  pulses  seems  a  part-- 
The  singing  of  the  Gondolier. 

When  tender  flowers  droop  and  swoon 
Beneath  the  perfumed  pall  of  night, 
And  trembling  trees  show  leaflets  white, 
All  silvered  by  the  pale  moonlight; 
Now  faintly  near,  now  sweetly  near, 
Now  faint  and  far,  now  deep  and  clear, 
A  lingering  memory  ever  dear — 
The  music  of  the  Gondolier. 

Many  carriages  had  crashed  past  the  little  group  of 
listeners  and  had  rumbled  softly  away  in  the  distance. 
As  the  song  ended  the  people  turned  to  disperse,  and  no 
one  seemed  to  notice  the  nearness  of  a  vehicle,  which  was 
close  upon  them,  until  the  fiery  eyes  of  a  pair  of  runaway 
horses  flashed  upon  them,  and  in  a  moment  more  they  had 
dashed  through  the  crowd,  tramping  a  path  over  prostrate 
forms.  It  was  all  so  sudden,  that  no  one  saw  the  driver 
crouching  in  helpless  terror  upon  the  box,  holding  on 
with  both  hands  and  clutching  one  side  of  a  broken  rein, 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  25 

and  inside  a  woman's  face  white  and  rigid  with  fear.  All 
was  now  confusion  and  screams,  where  a  moment  before 
was  only  music  and  peace.  Duke  had  been  borne  down 
in  an  attempt  to  grasp  the  horses,  and  was  mercilessly 
crushed  beneath  their  feet.  A  square  further  the  maddened 
brutes  crashed  blindly  against  an  archway,  one  falling 
dead,  and  so  entangling  the  other  as  to  render  it  helpless. 
The  driver,  almost  paralyzed  with  fright,  now  clambered 
feebly  to  the  ground  and  thrust  his  head  into  the  still  un 
injured  carriage,  with  the  ghastly  expectation  of  finding  his 
mistress  a  corpse,  but  the  Princess  de  Carillo — for  it  was 
she — had  recovered  from  her  terror  and  stepped  now  firmly 
on  to  the  street.  Through  the  whole  hideous  crush  she 
had  never  lost  consciousness;  she  had  seen  the  horses 
beating  down  the  little  crowd  in  the  Piazza,  and  knew  that 
some  of  then  must  have  been  injured  or  killed,  and  in  spite 
of  the  lateness  of  the  hour  and  the  remonstrances  of  the 
still  trembling  coachman,  she  walked  quickly  back  to  the 
scene  of  the  accident.  The  rough  pebbles  almost  cut 
through  the  thin  satin  shoes,  and  there  was  but  little  pro 
tection  in  the  flimsy  lace  shawl  around  her  head,  but  she 
was  a  generous  and  kindly-hearted  woman  and  did  not  con 
sider  herself  when  people  needed  help. 

"  Come,  Leon,  and  be  quick,"  she  said  almost  angrily  to 
the  coachman;  "I'm  not  afraid."  When  they  reached 
the  place  they  found  that  five  people  had  been  hurt,  and 
were  being  carried  to  their  homes  by  friends.  Pierre  had 
gone  in  search  of  a  carnage.  At  a  little  distance  from  the 
rest  she  saw  a  group  bending  over  a  prostrate  form.  There 
was  an  ominous  stillness  among  them.  As  the  princess 
approached  them  one  of  the  women  rose  to  her  feet;  an 
other,  a  mere  girl,  sat  upon  the  ground,  and  held  the 
sufferer's  head  on  her  lap.  The  princess  stood  over  them 


26  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

for  a  moment,  and  then  sank  weakly  upon  her  knees,  as 
she  recognized  the  deathly  white  face  of  Duke  Denver. 
She  forgot  the  people  who  were  looking  on,  and  the  girl 
who  sat  supporting  his  head,  and  who  now  glanced  jeal 
ously  up  at  her,  and  in  a  moment  the  white  jewelled  arms, 
bare  and  cold,  were  around  him,  drawing  him  towards  her. 
The  young  girl  arose  and  fell  back  a  pace  or  two,  and 
stood  gazing,  with  tightly  folded  hands,  at  the  woman  in 
white,  who  looked  so  like  a  beautiful  apparition. 

"  Quick,  Leon,  go  get  a  carriage.  I  know  him.  I  will 
take  him  to  his  home.  Come  to  me  to-morrow,  if  you 
need  help.  lam  the  Princess  de  Carillo/' 

Her  voice  sounded  harshly,  as  if  the  utterance  of 
words  pained  her,  and  she  bent  again  over  the  still,  insen 
sible  form,  holding  him  as  tenderly  as  one  might  hold  a 
child.  They  brought  him  to  her  house,  where  the  doctors 
were  soon  in  attendance.  Pierre  was  almost  distracted  with 
grief  and  forgot  his  own  bruises.  He  remained  with  Duke 
all  night,  and  mourned  his  young  friend  as  already  dead. 

Duke  did  not  become  conscious  until  the  next  day,  and 
then  he  lay  helpless  and  speechless,  the  graceful  young  form, 
quite  paralyzed.  No  murmur  of  pain  escaped  him,  and 
the  princess  could  only  tell  by  the  look  in  his  eyes,  when 
she  came  into  the  room,  that  he  knew  her.  She  could 
notice  a  faint  flush  on  the  pallid  face,  as  she  bent  over 
him  with  sad  beseeching  eyes.  It  was  unutterable  agony 
to  her  to  see  him  lying  thus,  and  she  would  have  shed  her 
heart's  blood,  if  it  would  have  given  him  life  enough  to 
speak  one  word  to  her. 

The  doctors  were  puzzled  about  the  case,  and  would 
not  give  much  hope.  "  A  severe  injury  to  the  spine  had 
affected  the  brain.  It  was  dangerous — very  dangerous," 
they  said,  "but  his  magnificent  physique  might  surmount 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  27 

it."  Every  voice  in  the  house  had  been  hushed  to  the 
softest  whisper.  Three  days  had  passed  since  the  accident, 
and  there  was  still  no  change  in  Duke's  condition.  The 
princess  was  almost  in  despair,  and  now  looked  for  the 
death  which  would  surely  take  some  of  her  life  with  it. 

One  evening  when  the  crimson  glow  of  the  sunset  stole 
into  the  sick  chamber,  a  broad  beam  fell  upon  the 
sick  man's  face,  and  surrounded  his  head  like  a  halo.  The 
princess  sat  near  him,  her  head  drooping  upon  her  hands. 
She  looked  up  suddenly  and  saw  the  glory  of  light  upon  his 
face,  and  making  a  golden  aureole  of  his  fair  hair.  The 
wide  blue  eyes  were  looking  straight  at  her,  full  of  melting 
pity,  as  if  he  fain  would  speak  and  comfort  her.  She 
thought  with  a  thrill  of  fear  that  this  must  be  death — 
holy  and  awful  to  her.  For  a  moment  she  sank  upon  her 
knees,  awed  and  reverent  in  its  presence,  and  then,  some 
thing  that  had  become  infinitely  stronger  than  holy  fear, 
arose  in  her,  and  she  drew  the  unresisting  head  close  to 
her  and  kissed  the  still  dumb  lips  again  and  again.  Then 
she  laid  him  back  softly  upon  the  pillow  and  went  away, 
covering  her  face  with  her  hands,  as  if  to  keep  that  last 
look  of  his  in  her  eyes  forever,  and  walked  unsteadily  to 
the  room  where  the  doctor  was  still  waiting. 

But  the  "grim  white  steed"  took  his  departure  at  last, 
and  a  change  for  the  better  set  in;  even  the  doctors  were 
surprised.  The  rigidity  of  his  limbs  began  to  relax  and 
he  gained  strength  rapidly;  his  own  vojce  was  the  first  to 
break  the  long  silence  in  his  chamber,  and  her  name  was 
the  first  word  that  he  uttered. 

They  sent  for  her  and  she  came  quickly,  but  paused  in 
the  doorway  so  that  she  might  hear  his  voice  and  compose 
herself.  She  waited  in  the  darkness  of  the  doorway  until 
the  doctors  should  leave  the  room  by  the  door  leading  to 


28  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

the  main  hall,  "for  no  one  must  see  the  Princess  de 
Carillo  weeping  over  the  young  American  stranger." 

She  could  hear  his  voice,  weak  and  querulous  as  that  of 
a  child,  asking  to  see  her,  but  she  could  not  stir  then  to 
save  her  life.  She  dared  not  go  in  yet,  but  not  a  word, 
not  a  sigh  of  his  escaped  her.  The  doctors  went  away 
at  last  and  then  she  went  softly  in;  she  had  composed  her 
self,  although  her  face  bore  ineffaceable  traces  of  acute 
anguish. 

His  eyes  lighted  up  joyously  as  she  came  towards  him; 
there  was  a  questioning,  too,  in  their  blue  depths  that  he 
could  never  put  into  words — it  was  soul  speaking  to  soul, 
in  which  no  words  could  avail. 

"  You  have  been  suffering  for  me,"  he  said  softly,  as 
she  put  her  hand  into  his,  "and  it  nearly  killed  me 

to '*  but  she  put  her  hand  gently  over  his  mouth  and 

he  said  no  more.  Great  tears  of  thankfulness  were  in  her 
eyes  and  dropped  upon  his  face  as  he  held  her  hand  in 
happy  silence. 

The  doctors  soon  returned  and  she  became  her  own 
superb  self  again.  Pierre  Lacroix  was  with  the  doctors 
and  his  joy  was  like  that  of  a  schoolboy,  a  mixture  of 
laughter  and  tears. 

In  his  boyish,  affectionate  way,  Duke  had  liked  the 
princess,  and  had  actually  felt  very  young  and  insignificant 
in  her  eyes.  To  submit  to  her  kindly  patronage  seemed 
quite  natural  to  Ijis  simple,  glowing  nature,  and  matters 
might  have  gone  on  thus  for  a  lifetime  without  awaken 
ing  any  other  sentiments  in  his  heart;  but  such  friendships 
are  often  dangerously  blind  as  well  as  beautiful. 

The  princess  left  the  room  with  a  sweet  smile  upon  her 
face  and  walked  slowly  to  her  own  chamber,  where  her 
pride  and  fortitude  deserted  her,  or  rather,  were  flung 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  29 

aside,  and  a  wretched  woman  grovelled  upon  the  floor 
because  of  the  love  which  was  a  shame. 

Some  souls  grow  stronger  as  the  body  weakens — it  may 
be  that  the  spirit  detaches  itself  from  its  earthly  shell — 
gathering  its  scattered  strength  unto  itself,  and  stands 
alone  in  its  own  purity. 

So  also  does  the  spirit  sometimes  weaken  as  its  earthly 
rind  withers  and  falls  away.  Duke's  soul  and  body  sank 
together  and  were  now  craving,  child-like  in  their  weakness, 
for  the  comfort  that  his  soul  would,  in  its  strength,  have 
rejected.  With  returned  health  he  might  beat  this 
weakness  back  from  heart  and  brain,  though  quelling  the 
surging  tide  of  a  young  heart  is  an  Herculean  task  and 
might  be  more  than  he  could  accomplish. 

Just  now  he  did  not  trouble  himself  about  the  right  or 
wrong  of  it;  he  had  no  strength  for  any  mental  exertion, 
but  lay  quietly,  a  strange,  happy  languor  upon  him  which 
he  did  not  care  to  disturb. 

The  princess  came  to  see  him  but  seldom  now,  and  he 
understood  her  reasons;  she  only  came  when  the  doctors 
were  there.  The  memory  of  that  kiss,  given,  as  she 
thought,  in  his  dumb  and  dying  moments,  seemed  to 
linger  upon  his  lips,  and  was  freshened  by  the  loving  mem 
ory  in  which  he  held  it.  There  was  in  it  much  of  boyish 
longing  for  her  woman's  kindly  touch,  but  its  fatal  sweet 
ness  gathered  strength  with  returning  health,  eating  its 
way  to  his  very  soul,  and  fanning  the  dormant  fire  in  his 
nature  to  an  unquenchable  flame. 

He  sprang  quickly  into  health  and  strength,  now,  and 
as  he  did  so,  the  visits  of  the  princess  ceased  entirely,  and 
he  could  have  wished  that  he  might  lie  there  maimed  and 
helpless  all  his  life. 

We  are  taught  to  buffet  what  is  antagonistic  to  body  and 


30  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

soul;  and  most  of  us  are  educated  and  strengthened  by 
religion  to  combat  the  sins  which  we  know  by  name,  but 
there  are  innumerable  untrained  emotions,  intangible 
weaknesses,  which  are  our  most  fatal  foes,  because  they 
are  born  of  the  human  heart,  every  day  and  hour  of 
our  lives,  and  for  which  we  have  no  laws,  no  rules,  for 
ever  troubling  us  with  questions  which  we  know  not  how 
to  answer,  and  menacing  us  with  danger  which  we  are 
almost  powerless  to  ward  away. 

Duke  Denver's  boyhood  had  passed  quickly  out  of  sight 
forever.  The  placidity  of  the  calm,  religious-tinted  soul  in 
him,  which  had  been  like  a  clear  lake  in  the  sunshine,  was 
now  stirred  to  its  deepest  depths,  bringing  much  that  was 
earthly  in  it  to  the  surface,  and  a  swift  and  troubled  cur 
rent  into  his  life. 

A  few  days  after  Duke  had  left  the  house  of  the  prin 
cess,  her  maid  came  to  her  with  a  puzzled  face. 

"  Madame,  there  is  a  person,  a  girl,  who  has  been  here 
very  often,  to  enquire  about  the  health  of  M.  Denver; 
some  creature,  no  doubt,  who  should  be  sent  away." 

"  What  does  she  look  like,  Marie?"  questioned  the 
princess,  with  a  thoughtful  air.  "Perhaps,"  she  added 
hastily,  "  she  comes  from  some  of  the  people  who  were 
hurt  by  my  carriage.  Did  she  wish  to  see  me  ?  Let  her  be 
brought  to  me." 

"Yes,  madame,  if  the  porter  has  not  sent  her  away;  he 
has  grown  tired  of  her  coming  so  often." 

"Go  quick,  Marie,"  said  the  princess,  angrily,  "and 
bring  her  back." 

In  a  few  minutes  the  maid  returned,  followed  by  the 
Sicilian  peasant,  the  girl  whom  Duke  Denver  had  told  her 
about,  and  the  princess  recognized  the  girl  who  had  been 
holding  his  head  upon  her  lap  when  he  lay  for  dead. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  31 

The  princess  gazed  at  her  in  silence,  as  if  her  mind  were 
occupied  with  something  else,  and  then  begging  Marie  to 
leave  her,  she  motioned  to  the  girl  to  come  nearer. 

"  I  know  what  you  would  ask,  child — for  M.  Denver,  is 
it  not  ?" 

"Excellenza,  yes,  pray  tell  me  that  he  lives,  that  he 
will  not  die,"  replied  the  girl  with  an  imploring  gesture, 
"  He  has  been  kind,  ah!  so  kind  to  me;"  here  she  quailed 
and  clasped  her  hands  beseechingly. 

For  a  moment  a  wild,  unreasoning  anger  filled  the  bosom 
of  the  princess  against  this  wretched  child,  who  could  and 
might  love  him  without  sin  or  shame,  but  only  for  a 
moment,  and  then  the  woman's  better  nature  asserted 
itself,  and  when  she  spoke  again  her  voice  had  a  broken, 
pitiful  tone.  "Yes,  girl,  he  is  well.  He  has  been  kind 
to  you?"  Her  voice  grew  softer  now.  "  Ah,  who  would 
not  be,"  she  murmured  more  to  herself,  as  she  noticed  the 
slim,  graceful  outlines  of  the  form,  which  promised  a  mag 
nificent  maturity.  The  thin,  clinging  garments  upon  her 
were  old  and  faded,  but  there  was  in  every  wreath  and 
fold  an  unconscious  beauty. 

The  faint  dusk  of  red  in  her  olive  cheeks  deepened  as 
she  stood  there,  embarrassed  and  irresolute.  "  She  is  not 
a  bold  girl,"  thought  the  princess,  "Oh,  far,  far  from  it. 
Mon  Dieu"  she  murmured,  "  but  it  nearly  cost  her  her 
life  to  come  here,  and  yet  she  would  walk  upon  burn 
ing  brass  to  get  news  of  him.  Sapristi,  what  a  face  she 
has.  But  you  are  standing,  my  child,"  she  said;  "  I  had 
not  noticed.  I  am  sorry.  Pray  sit  down." 

The  princess  now  relapsed  into  deep  thought.  "  And  I 
am  the  one  who  has  destroyed  him,"  she  said  to  herself,  "  and 
I  am,  alas!  powerless  to  save  him,  to  help  him.  Mon 
Dieu"  she  sighed  almost  aloud,  "my  help  would  only 


32  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

complete  his  ruin.  Presently  she  turned  to  the  girl: 
"  You  can  sing,  I  believe." 

"Excellenza,  yes;  in  my  poor  way/'  the  girl  replied. 

"Will  you  sing  for  me  now?"  the  princess  asked,  with 
one  of  her  sweet  smiles. 

The  young  peasant  looked  at  the  gorgeous  surroundings 
for  a  troubled  moment,  and  then  her  eyes  rested  upon  the 
face  of  the  princess  in  a  mute  appeal,  as  if  she  thought 
her  singing  would  be  incongruous  in  the  presence  of  so 
much  magnificence,  but  the  reassuring  smile  of  the  prin 
cess,  who  quite  understood  her,  gave  her  some  courage, 
and  she  commenced  to  sing.  The  sweet  mouth  quivered 
at  first  and  the  words  came  tremblingly,  and  then  the 
sound  of  her  own  voice  seemed  to  render  her  oblivious  of 
her  surroundings,  and  it  grew  and  swelled  in  strength  and 
sweetness,  the  stream-like  flow  of  the  melody  scarcely 
rippled  by  a  word,  so  soft  is  the  accent  of  Sicily;  even  the 
patois  of  the  peasant  is  so  softly  lipped  as  to  be  scarcely 
distinguishable  in  song.  Not  till  her  song  was  finished, 
so  wrapped  was  she  in  her  own  exquisite  music,  did  the 
girl's  cheeks  redden,  but  now  the  rich  blood  diffused  her 
face  until  it  fairly  burned,  and  she  seemed  sadly  conscious 
of  having  done  a  very  bold  act. 

"  Charming,"  murmured  the  princess,  though  somewhat 
absently.  Already  she  had  commenced  to  plan  a  scheme 
in  which  this  young  girl  might  play  an  important  part,  and 
her  brain  had  become  so  busy  that  she  had  not  paid  much 
attention  to  the  girl's  singing,  but  she  had  heard  enough  to 
know  that  she  possessed  the  germ  of  a  superb  voice,  and 
with  such  a  face  and  form,  too,  she  thought,  could  be 
easily  improved  into  a  magnificent  woman.  The  prin 
cess  was  thoroughly  herself  now;  all  the  womanly  kindness 
and  generosity  of  her  nature  were  aroused,  and  became 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  33 

powerful  factors  in  the  plans  which  her  busy  brain  was  now 
weaving.  She  dismissed  the  young  girl  with  a  request 
that  she  would  come  to  her  on  the  morrow  with  her 
parents. 

The  next  day  Veronica,  for  such  was  her  name,  arrived 
with  her  parents,  who  were  easily  persuaded  to  allow  the 
girl  to  be  sent  to  school,  where  the  princess  assured  them 
she  would  be  taught  all  the  arts  of  music  and  singing,  and, 
moreover,  promised  to  help  them,  as  they  were  very  poor, 
and  Veronica  had  been  their  chief  support. 

The  princess  attended  to  all  the  arrangements  for  send 
ing  the  girl  to  school  with  a  feverish  sort  of  joy  which  had 
in  it  a  linking  pain.  Her  noble  efforts  in  this  matter  were 
wrung  from  the  keenest  self-sacrifice,  but,  when  all  had 
been  completed,  and  she  had  kissed  the  girl  farewell,  a  flood 
swept  through  her  soul,  calming,  consoling,  and  purifying, 
because  of  this  act  of  God-inspired  justice  and  atonement, 
the  conception  of  which  was  worthy  of  a  goddess. 

But  there  was  something  more  to  be  done — she  must  see 
Duke  Denver  again,  though  she  knew  it  would  wring  her 
heart  to  its  very  roots.  Her  note  to  him  was  without  name 
or  date,  and  ran  thus:  "I  ought  not  to  send  for  you,  and 
cannot  blame  you  if  you  refuse  to  come.  I  want  to  ask 
your  forgiveness.  I  am  trying,  with  God's  help,  to  undo 
the  wrong  which  I  have  unintentionally  done.5'  This  was 
the  hardest  part  of  the  task  which  she  had  set  herself  to  do, 
but  she  would  shrink  from  nothing  now. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Pierre  Lacroix  was  too  kindly  hearted  to  plume  himself 
upon  the  fulfillment  of  his  jocose  prophecy,  but  was  now 
cursing  himself  unmercifully  for  what  he  considered  was  his 
fault  in  allowing  his  young  friend  to  fall  into  trouble.  He  had 
regarded  Duke  as  a  mere  boy,  whose  love,  he  thought, 
would  be  only  a  youthful  effervescence  which  would 
quickly  boil  over,  and  vanish  like  a  bubble.  He  loved 
Duke  as  a  brother,  and  loved  him  well,  after  his  own 
fashion.  Wild,  blase,  and  godless,  he  had  scarcely  an 
atom  of  feeling  for  men  of  his  own  mould;  though  he 
played,  drank  and  caroused  with  them  all  his  life,  not  one 
of  them  found  room  in  his  thoughts  an  hour  later. 

To  the  young  American,  whose  boyhood  seemed  to  be 
ever  freshly  springing  within  him,  whose  rare  honesty  and 
purity  were  ever  mildly  reproachful  to  him,  Pierre  had 
given  all  the  affection  of  which  his  reckless  nature  was 
capable. 

To  other  men  he  could  freely  boast  of  his  excesses,  but 
he  could  no  more  tell  of  such  things  to  Duke  than  he  could 
to  a  refined  woman.  He  was  terribly  pained  because  the 
unruffled  calm  of  the  young  man's  life,  which  was  hitherto 
like  the  placid  bosom  of  a  clear  lake,  was  now  tempest- 
tossed  to  its  deepest  depths.  The  thing  which  he  had 
dimly  feared  had  actually  occurred,  and  Duke,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  had  sought  a  wretched  oblivion  in  the 
treacherous  wine-cup. 

The  Frenchman  had  seen  intemperance  in  all  its  stages, 
unmoved,  but  a  pain  which  had  in  it  the  bitterness  of 
death,  had  wrung  his  heart  when  he  came  home  one  even- 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  35 

ing,  and  saw  the  fair  boyish  face  flushed  and  feverish,  a 
reckless  light  in  the  blue  eyes,  and  the  handsome  form 
flung  in  utter  helplessness  upon  a  lounge. 

He  had  seen  wrecks  of  men  who  were  once  of  the  "  pur 
ple  and  fine  linen"  order,  he  knew  of  such  things  every 
day  in  Paris,  but  they  seemed  as  nothing  beside  this — this 
destruction  of  what  was  to  him  almost  an  idol. 

The  princess  had  secretly  dreaded  this  also.  She  feared 
for  him  because  he  was  so  young,  and,  to  her  mind,  with 
out  a  man's  endurance  of  disappointment. 

She  waited,  day  after  day,  for  ne<vs  of  him,  but  no 
answer  came. 

In  sheer  agony  she  said  to  herself,  "If  he  does  not  come, 
I  will  go  to  him,"  as  visions  of  his  despair,  of  possible  self- 
destruction  haunted  her;  but  it  came  at  last — a  little  note, 
written  in  an  unsteady  hand,  and  ran: 

"I  would  come  to  you,  oh!  so  quickly,  but  not  in  the 
spirit  you  would  wish.  God  has  given  you  the  grace  which 
he  has  denied  to  me.  If  I  look  upon  your  face  again,  I 
will  be  something  that  you  would  abhor.  Pray  for  me, 
that  I  may  be  enabled  to  take  your  image  out  of  my  heart. 
It  is  so  filled  with  you  that  I  dare  not  ask  God  for  help." 

The  note  dropped  at  her  feet,  and  she  clasped  her  head 
between  her  hands.  She  knew  now  that  he  still  loved  her 
hopelessly — that  he  was  suffering,  and  that  she  could  do 
nothing  to  help  him. 

"He  cannot  come  to  me,"  she  moaned,  "and  he  is  right. 
I  should  not  have  asked  him;  but  how  shall  I  know  that 
he  is  safe  ?"  There  was  only  one  thing  now  for  her  to  do, 
though  it  would  be  a  bitter  humiliation— -it  was  to  send 
for  his  friend,  Pierre  Lacroix,  to  take  him  into  her  confi 
dence.  But  that  meant  nothing  less  than  a  total  loss  of 
dignity — of  disgrace  to  name  and  race,  and  she  could  face 


36  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

death  a  thousand  times  more  willingly  than  even  the 
shadow  of  dishonor.  There  was  a  bitter  struggle  in  her 
heart  now,  between  humility  and  pride,  but  her  love  was 
truly  that  in  which  "  self  was  lost  and  slain."  Body  and 
brain  must  now  suffer  for  the  guilt  of  the  heart — if  guilt  it 
was.  The  struggle  was  fierce  and  brief,  and  out  of  it  came 
a  woman  with  throbbing  brain,  and  white,  bloodless  lips, 
but  with  a  heart  purged  and  purified  by  self-humiliation. 

The  very  quintessence  of  love  is  assuredly  a  total 
annihilation  of  selfishness.  True  love  can  only  exist  in  the 
light  and  sunshine  of  another's  joy — happy  only  in  the 
reflection  of  another's  happiness.  There  was  none  of  the 
"barren  bulb  of  selfishness"  in  this  wroman's  love;  the 
pleading  heart-plaint  was  no  longer  for  herself,  the  love 
flower  which  had  growrn  unbidden  in  her  sunless  path,  now 
lay  crushed  and  fruitless. 

Such  a  woman  as  Hortense  de  Carillo  could  be  great 
in  her  deepest  humility.  To  succor  a  man  who  could  be 
naught  to  her  on  earth,  and  make  him  happy,  was  now 
the  dominant  desire  of  her  life;  to  write  to  Pierre  Lacroix 
was  a  task  easy  enough  now,  and  she  sent  for  him. 

He  came  quickly  and  brought  news  which  chilled  her 
blood.  He  was  very  ill,  he  said,  and  if  she  wished 
to  come  he  would  not  recognize  her.  She  went  back 
with  Pierre  Lacroix  in  her  carriage,  humbly  and  passively, 
listening  meekly  to  all  that  he  said. 

Duke  lay  in  a  hot  fever,  his  young  body  scorching  in 
pain.  He  never  knew  who  bent  over  him  for  many  days, 
waiting  humbly  and  reverently  upon  him,  feeling  neither 
shame  nor  cowardice — the  task  was  to  her  now  one  of 
holiness. 

Again  the  fingers  of  death  were  clutching  at  his  heart, 
striving  with  cruel  kindness  to  still  forever  its  hopeless 
pain. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  37 

His  fevered  brain  was  busy  with  images  thousands  of 
miles  away.  "How  cool  your  hand  is,  Florence.  Oh! 
don't  take  it  way.  How  changed  you  are,  my  sister.  I 
had  always  thought  your  eyes  were  blue,  but  they  look 
black  now,  and  your  hair  is  streaked  with  grey."  He 
thought  himself  a  boy  again,  playing  with  her  the  old 
games  of  childhood.  "  How  strong  you  must  be,  Floy,  to 
drag  me  out  of  that  river  where  I  might  have  drowned/1 
he  murmured  with  a  shudder.  Anon  his  face  would 
brighten  as  he  fancied  himself  once  more  among  his  native 
fields  and  forests  and  the  surroundings  of  his  home,  which 
had  constituted  a  wide  and  happy  world  to  him.  The 
present  seemed  wholly  eclipsed  by  the  memories  of  his 
boyhood,  and  the  woman  who  listened  in  anguish  to  his 
fevered  ravings  could  not  help  thinking  that  it  would  be 
a  rare  mercy  if  he  died  thus — his  mind  filled  only  with  the 
unsullied  memories  of  childhood.  At  times  his  mind 
came  back  in  a  hopeless  jumble,  to  the  present,  dragging 
the  tired  brain  into  labyrinthian  realms  of  confusion; 
this,  she  could  only  read  in  his  troubled  face,  but  his 
tongue  never  uttered  a  syllable  of  the  present. 

A  change  for  the  better  came  at  last,  and  he  came 
slowly  back  from  the  doors  of  death. 

At  the  first  assurance  of  the  doctors  that  the  danger  was 
past,  the  princess  went  away,  leaving  her  secret,  if  such 
he  might  deem  it,  in  the  possession  of  Pierre  Lacroix. 

The  doctors  had  ordered  Duke  to  return  to  his  native 
land  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  travel,  and  a  week  later 
saw  him  ready  for  the  journey. 

When  a  woman  tries  to  rise  above  the  earthly  grossness  of 
her  pride,  the  journey  upward  is  slow  and  painful,  the  steps 
thereof,  cruel  and  cutting,  but  they  soon  grow  smooth  by 
suffering,  plainer  and  more  accessible  by  the  clear  light  of 


38  MAR.MADUKE    DENVER. 

a  pure  motive,  and  the  final  award  is  the  grace  which  can 
only  be  purchased  with  pain. 

On  the  journey  home  Duke  was  too  helpless,  both 
mentally  and  bodily,  to  think  much  about  anything.  He 
felt  like  a  person  out  of  whose  hands  the  business  of  life 
had  been  taken  forever,  and  was  dimly  conscious  of 
having  been  drifting  aimlessly,  giving  himself  up  to  a  sort 
of  blind-folded  happiness,  and  following  helplessly  a  beau 
tiful  mirage  which  had  now  faded  quite  away,  leaving  him 
in  troubled  darkness.  He  had  also  a  pitiful  sense  of 
paralyzed  energies,  as  a  man  who  had  become  suddenly 
old  and  feeble.  These  were  some  of  the  glimmerings 
which  his  brain  weakly  grasped  as  he  journeyed  home 
wards. 

There  was  a  sort  of  mental  comfort  in  the  winding  and 
rushing  of  the  train,  the  moving  without  effort,  being 
carried  along  through  sunny  scenes  of  field  and  farm,  of 
smooth-flowing  rivers  and  majestic  mountains,  now  near, 
now  distant — all  being  bathed  in  a  soft  haze.  To  many 
weary  souls  there  would  have  been  something  of  mockery 
in  all  this  peace  and  beauty,  but  Duke's  was  not  a  mind  to 
envelop  itself  in  "  sheets  of  bitterness,"  however  gloomy  it 
might  be;  it  was  somewhat  of  an  open-work  fabric,  which 
could  not  entirely  resist  the  sunlight,  and  could  even 
absorb  some  of  its  rays.  He  was  not  keenly  miserable 
now;  no  doubt,  he  might  realize  that  with  returned  health. 
Betimes,  too,  he  felt  like  a  man  floating  upon  a  boundless 
sea,  a  white  ship  appearing  ever  and  anon  in  the  dis 
tance,  the  soft  lulling  waters  seeming  to  carry  him 
farther  away  from  it.  In  his  dreamy,  half-convalescent 
state,  this  strange  sea  became,  in  his  imagination,  the  cold 
stream  of  conscience,  pure  and  limpid,  in  which  he  saw 
his  own  life  clearly  mirrored.  He  could  see  his  errors 


MARMADUKE  DENVER.  39 

reflected,  not  in  great  crimson  stains,  but  in  softened 
color  and  outline,  as  objects  seen  through  depths  of  water. 
It  was  a  gentle,  silent  stream,  which  seemed  to  flow 
through  the  inner  channels  of  his  soul,  purifying  and  heal 
ing,  and  ever  bearing  him  away  from  the  snow-white 
ship,  which  still  remained  in  sight,  and  though  it  had 
never  beckoned  him  on,  he  knew  that  it  contained  for 
him  a  delirious  and  deadly  happiness. 

He  reached  home  in  the  mellow  autumn  when  the 
woods  were  assuming  gorgeous  hues  of  gold  and  crimson. 
Soft  winds  moaned  with  a  lonely  cadence  among  the 
whispering  leaves,  as  if  mourning  the  departed  summer. 
The  few  remaining  flowers  were  about  to  breathe  their  last 
perfumed  sigh  before  the  rude  hand  of  winter  should  lay 
them  with  their  sister  leaves. 

William  Denver  drove  to  the  railroad  depot  in  the  next 
town  to  meet  his  favorite  son,  who  had  left  home  five 
years  before,  a  strong,  lusty  youth,  with  life  enough  in 
his  young  body  to  last  a  century,  and  now  the  shocked 
father  scarcely  recognized  him,  so  pale  and  thin  he  looked. 
They  had  known  from  his  letters  that  he  ' '  had  not  been 
well,"  but  were  totally  unprepared  for  this.  The  poor  old 
man  made  a  great  effort  to  hide  his  grieved  surprise,  and 
replaced  it  with  a  feeling  of  secret  indignation — born  of  the 
old  objections — which  still  lay  dormant  in  him,  against  all 
processes  of  refinement  and  improvement.  Hot,  angry 
tears  rushed  to  his  eyes  until  he  could  hardly  see.  This, 
he  thought,  was  the  result  of  tasting  the  poisoned  fruit  of 
fashionable  life.  He  would  a  thousand  times  rather  have 
seen  him  a  healthy,  sunburnt  farmer — those  small,  blue- 
veined  hands  of  his,  rough  and  horny  from  toil. 

The  father  eyed  his  son  furtively  as  they  drove  home,  and 
did  not  dare  to  look  broadly  at  him,  fearing  that  he  should 


40  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

see  the  anguish  which  he  knew  must  be  in  his  face.  Duke 
was  glad  to  see  his  old  home  again.  There  are  lew  cases, 
indeed,  of  mental  trouble,  that  are  not  alleviated  in  some 
degree  by  a  visit  to  the  scenes  of  youth,  that  bright  and 
pure  period  of  our  lives  athwart  whose  undimmed  light  the 
world  seldom  casts  a  shadow. 

Florence  was  waiting  for  them  at  the  gate — grown  to  a 
tall  and  beautiful  womanhood.  When  she  saw  Duke's  pale 
face  the  smile  left  hers,  and  the  cheery  words  of  welcome 
died  upon  her  lips;  she  could  only  open  her  arms  wide  and 
bring  his  head  down  to  her  lips  in  silence. 

A  few  weeks  at  home  improved  him  rapidly.  Florence 
had  lovingly  constituted  herself  his  nurse  and  he  gladly 
relinguished  himself  to  her  care. 

"  Do  you  know  that  you  have  grown  to  be  a  beautiful 
woman,  Floy?"  he  said  to  her  one  day  as  she  sat  upon  a 
low  chair  by  the  lounge  where  he  lay.  "  But  you  have 
not  told  me  anything  of  Harold  Hereford.  When  is  he 
coming  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he  only  makes  a  flying  visit  once  in  a  while,"  she 
replied  with  a  slight  blush;  "  he  has  been  busy  since  his 
appointment  to  the  asylum." 

"  When  have  you  seen  him  last,  Floy  ?  " 

"  About  a  month  ago,  Mr.  Curiosity." 

"  Love  him  as  much  as  ever,  Floy  ?  "  he  continued. 

"  Oh!  Duke,  what  a  merciless  inquisitor  you  are;  how 
many  more  questions  must  I  answer  ?  "  she  exclaimed, 
putting  her  hand  §over  his  mouth.  "  No'v  I  am  going  to 
ask  you  some." 

"  Oh,  as  many  as  you  please,"  he  said,  laughing;  "  but 
you  don't  happen  to  remember  any  apple  blossom  period 
in  my  existence,  and,"  he  continued,  with  a  twinkle  of 
mischief  in  his  eyes,  "  and  you  did  not  care  a  pin  about 
him,  did  you,  Floy?" 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  4! 

' '  And  you  were  mean  enough  to  watch  us  from  the 
summer-house,"  she  retaliated,  with  the  air  of  a  person  who 
had  suffered  from  an  unpardonable  injury  in  the  past. 

"  Milton  was  a  party,  in  fact,  the  ringleader  in  that  out 
rage;  but  he  was  an  awful  gawk,  Floy,  and  one  could  not 
help  making  fun  of  him;  but  don't  be  angry,  Floy,"  he 
laughed,  seeing  that  she  made  no  answer,  "I  won't  tease 
you  any  more,"  and  he  drew  her  head  down  to  him  and 
kissed  her. 

"  But  where  is  your  Mrs.  Grey?"  he  resumed,  after  a 
pause.  "  I  have  been  home  a  week  and  have  not  seen 
her  yet.  Where  does  she  keep  herself  ? " 

"  She  has  gone  home.  Duke,  for  a  week  or  two;  she 
went  a  few  days  before  you  came.  Her  mother  has  been 
ill.  We  feel  quite  lonely  without  her.  Oh!  Duke,"  she 
continued,  "  she  is  lovely,  and  you  must  be  careful  or  you 
will  lose  your  heart  to  her.  Oh!  won't  it  be  my  turn 
then,"  she  continued,  laughing.  "  I  will  have  you  both 
right  under  my  watchful  eye,  and  will  have  a  chance  to 
pay  you  back." 

"  You  are  welcome,  Floy,"  replied  her  brother,  "  when 
you  do  get  the  chance.  I  think, "he  added,  "you  said 
something  to  me  in  one  of  your  letters  about  her  hair  being 
grey." 

"Yes,"  replied  Florence;  "the  contrast  between  her 
grey  hair  and  young  face  is  very  strange,  and  her  eyes  are 
simply  divine,"  she  added  enthusiastically. 

"  I  have  been  dreaming,"  said  Duke,  somewhat  absently, 
'•'a  weakness  peculiar  to  idle  artists,  I  believe,  of  a  woman 
with  just  such  eyes  as  you  have  described,  but  I'm  afraid 
I  have  already  found  my  realization  in  a  peasant  girl  of 
Sicily,  who  once  honored  me  with  a  sitting.  I  found  her 
begging  in  the  streets  of  Florence,  whining  in  the  usual 


42  MAKMADl  KK    DENVER. 

continental  fashion,  but  her  voice  had  a  pathetic  sort  of 
melody  in  it;  but  your  description  of  Mrs.  Grey  also  sug 
gests  something  of  a  mystery.  I'm  curious  to  ee  her.  By 
the  way,  Floy,  is  she  aware  of  my  existence  ?" 

"Oh!  yes,"  replied  Florence;  "  she  knows  that  I  have 
two  brothers,  and  she  has  seen  your  pictures." 

"  Which  of  the  pictures  did  she  consider  the  better-look 
ing?  "  asked  Duke,  with  feigned  anxiety. 

"  I  don't  know,  Mr.  Vanity;  we  may  find  that  out  after 
she  sees  you  both,  and  besides,"  she  continued  archly, 
"  there  is  more  pleasure  in  making  those  kind  of  discov 
eries  yourbelf." 

The  winter  was  pleasant  at  the  farm-house,  and  Duke 
felt  it  doing  him  good.  Though  rapidly  acquiring  health 
and  a  certain  peace  at  heart,  he  felt  very  much  like  a 
dark  silhouette  against  the  bright  background  of  home 
happiness,  and  knew  that  he  could  be  no  contributor  to  it. 

Moreover,  he  had  lately  essayed  the  lugubrious  task  of 
self-analyzation,  "a  complete  going  over,"  as  he  grimly 
phrased  it  to  himself,  and  having  found  himself  sadly 
"wanting  in  the  balance,"  he  manfully  endeavored  to 
impose  upon  himself  the  Herculean  labor  of  self-punish 
ment. 

To  dilute  with  coldness  the  warm  liquid  in  youth's 
veins,  to  calm  and  stem  its  impetuous  current,  were  tasks 
as  easy,  indeed,  as  the  turning  backward  of  a  mighty 
river;  to  deaden  the  dull  pain  in  his  heart,  to  live 
stupidly  and  forget — forget — would  be  about  as  easily  ac 
complished  as  the  rest,  but  he  conscientiously  undertook 
the  task,  with  what  results  shall  be  seen  anon. 

About  this  time  he  went  to  spend  a  few  days  with  an 
old  school-fellow  in  the  next  town,  and  had  not  expected 
to  be  back  until  the  day  before  Christmas,  but  he  came 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  43 

sooner  than  he  had  intended.  He  arrived  when  it  was 
dusk  and  entered  the  house  unnoticed,  going  straight  to 
the  low-ceilinged  room  which  they  had  dubbed  the  library; 
he  threw  himself  into  an  easy  chair,  and,  without  intending 
it,  was  soon  fast  asleep.  He  was  awakened  by  someone 
touching  the  keys  of  the  piano  very  softly.  Whoever  it 
was  only  the  treble  notes  were  sounded,  and  an  air  picked 
out  with  one  hand.  He  listened  quietly,  thinking  that  it 
must  be  Florence  or  Kataline.  The  air  was  unknown  to 
him,  an  old-fashioned,  weird  thing  that  reminded  him  of 
Sicily  and  Veronica. 

Duke  had  become  somewhat  lazy  of  late,  and  luxurious 
of  habits.  He  liked  to  sit  still  and  have  his  senses  pleased, 
and  the  simple  old  tune  in  the  dark  accorded  wonderfully 
well  with  his  feelings  just  then.  To  disturb  him  at  the 
time  would  have  been  a  species  of  cruelty. 

But  it  was  neither  Florence  nor  Kataline,  for  they  both 
came  in  together  soon  after  and  spoke  to  her. 

It  must  be  Mrs.  Grey,  he  thought,  as  she  answered 
them  out  of  the  darkness. 

"We  are  so  glad  to  have  you  back  again,  dear,"  said 
Florence,  "  and  Duke  will  be  back  in  a  day  or  two," 
chimed  in  Kataline,  joyously. 

By  this  time  Duke  began  to  feel  like  an  eavesdropper, 
and  rose  to  his  feet,  feeling  uncertain  what  to  do  next.  It 
was  quite  dark  and  they  could  not  see  him;  the  old  boyish 
bashfulness  and  irresolution  were  strong  upon  him,  and  he 
finally  beat  an  inglorious  retreat  through  the  door  leading 
to  the  garden,  and  no  one  knew  of  his  return  until  he 
presented  himself  at  breakfast  the  next  morning. 

A  slight  figure  in  black  standing  by  the  fire-place 
turned  to  him  as  he  greeted  his  sisters,  and  Florence  said, 
u  Mrs.  Grey,  my  brother,  Duke." 


44  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

The  first  thing  that  impressed  him  was  the  peculiarity  of 
her  handshake.  Unlike  most  women  she  did  not  allow 
her  hand  to  lay  passively;  there  was  a  perceptible  clasp,  a 
kind  of  clinging  retention,  as  though  she  had  entertained 
kindly  opinions  of  you,  and  was  determined  to  make 
friends  with  you,  "taking  you  by  storm."  Duke  thought 
there  was  something  in  it  also  that  brought  to  his  mind 
the  old  Eastern  custom  of  securing  protection  from  an 
enemy  by  snatching  a  morsel  of  bread  and  salt. 

She  regarded  him  steadily  for  a  moment,  as  if  trying  to 
find  something  that  she  had  feared,  and  then  she  turned 
away  with  a  relieved  expression. 

What  a  tell-tale  face,  Duke  thought,  as  he  warmed 
his  hands  before  the  fire;  she  is  plainly  trying  to  hide 
something — something  that  is  not  her  fault  either — what  a 
pity.  I  have  read  and  dreamed  of  violet  eyes,  but  have 
never  seen  the  real  kind  until  now.  In  his  poetical 
imagination  she  was  like  a  beautiful  flower  with  a  cruel 
weight  upon  it. 

"Duke,"  said  his  sister  about  a  month  after,  "I  want 
you  to  do  something." 

"  You  do,  Floy,"  he  answered,  laughing;  "pray  what  might 
the  great  something  be  ?  " 

"It  is  a  pleasant  pastime,  I  promise  you  that"  she 
replied  decidedly. 

"  I'm  ready  sister  mine;  unfold  your  plans." 

"Duke,"  she  said  in  a  solemn  voice,  that  forbade  all 
further  joking,  "I  want  you  to  marry  Mrs.  Grey." 

"A  decidedly  novel  request,  Madamoiselle  Manage 
ment,"  laughed  her  brother,  with  genuine  amusement  in 
his  face;  "  but  would  it  make  any  difference  to  your  favor 
if  she  refused  me  ?  " 

"Never  mind  about  that,  Duke, "she answered  seriously, 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  45 

"that  will  all  come  right  in  time;  I  have  my  heart  set  on 
it,  and  you  must  not  disappoint  me,  Duke." 

"Of  course  you  are  joking,  Floy,"  replied  her  brother, 
trying  to  look  serious,  "but  really  among  my  numerous 
sins  I  have  not  yet  developed  the  fungus  one  of  vanity, 
and  if  I  were  the  best  fellow  in  the  world  I  don't  think  she 
would  care  about  me.  Now  there  is  Milton,  for  instance; 
don't  you  think  he  would  be  a  more  suitable  parti  ?  "  As 
Duke  said  this  he  really  for  the  moment  stepped  down 
from  the  comical  standpoint  from  which  he  had  been 
regarding  Florence's  novel  proposition,  and  began  to  take 
a  more  serious  view  of  the  situation  wherein  Milton  and 
Mrs.  Grey  might  be  the  principal  figures. 

"But  you  know  Milton  can't  marry,"  said  Florence. 
"He  is  to  enter  the  church,  and  you  will  be  the  only  one 
left,"  she  added,  with  an  air  of  desolation. 

"Florence,"  said  her  brother,  "you  might  as  well 
expect  me  to  fall  in  love  with  a  picture  or  a  statue,  and  I 
fear  I  lack  the  necessary  ambition  to  make  a  modern 
Pygmalion  of  myself.  She  is  very  interesting  to  me  from 
an  artistic  point  of  view,  but  love  is  a  warm  feeling  that 
needs  something  more  of  flesh  and  blood  to  rest  upon." 

"Oh,  you  artists  are  all  conceited,"  replied  Florence, 
impatiently,  "and  you  have  queer  ideas  about  women." 

"To  convince  you  that  I  am  not  conceited,  Floy," 
replied  her  brother,  "I  will  say  just  this  much:  you  must 
know,  mon  enfant"  he  commenced  oratorically,  "that  no 
one  can  consistently  admire  man,  woman,  or  thing  for 
beauty  or  goodness,  unless  they  possess,  in  some  degree, 
the  attributes  of  that  which  they  admire;  ergo,  I  am  not 
vain  cr  presumptious  enough  to  admire  things  that  are 
infinitely  superior  to  me,  not  having  the  shadow  of  a 
corresponding  quality  to  warrant  me  in  aspiring." 


46  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

"Oh  nonsense!"  replied  the  sister,  giving  the  fire  a 
judicious  poke.  "  You  are  good  enough  for  any  woman 
and  every  one  likes  you  — and — 

"I  don't  deserve  it,  Floy,  it's  a  mistake;  no  one  will 
ever  fall  in  love  with  me — but  tell  me  something  of  the 
modus  operandi,  Floy.  I'm  a  mere  novice  in  affairs  de  la 
c&ur;  you  have  been  eminently  successful,  and  could  give 
me  some  'points."3 

"  Oh,  Duke,  you  are  a  humbug.  Have  you  never  made 
love  to  anyone,  never  seen  a  woman  that  you  could  love  ?'"' 

"  Leading  questions,  every  one  of  'em,"  he  answered, 
running  his  fingers  through  his  hair;  "  but  women  are  all 
so  different,  you  know,  and  what  might  win  one  would 
scare  another  away.  Now  Milton  is  the  sort  of  fellow  she 
would  take  a  fancy  to,  I'll  bet  you,  Floy,"  he  continued 
with  a  sudden  inspiration  of  prophecy;  "  but  wait  till  he 
comes." 

At  this  junction  Florence  was  called  away,  and  Duke 
was  left  to  his  meditations.  Mrs.  Grey  was  a  sort  of 
study  to  him.  She  was  different  from  any  woman  he  had 
ever  known,  and,  unlike  any  that  his  imagination  could 
have  conceived;  there  was  nothing  decided  about  her,  but 
an  unobtrusive  suggestiveness  of  all  that  was  sweet  and 
good,  leaving  you  space,  as  it  were,  to  magnify  each  quality 
a  thousand  fold.  She  seemed  to  breathe  a  pure  atmos 
phere  around  her,  and  one  could  no  more  harbor  an 
unholy  thought  in  her  presence  than  he  would  within  the 
sacred  precincts  of  a  sanctuary.  She  was  a  woman  that  he 
could  revere  with  all  his  soul,  but  she  could  never  touch 
his  heart. 

"I  wish  Milton  would  come,"  he  thought,  as  he  flung 
the  end  of  a  cigar  in  the  fire.  "  There  is  a  leaf  folded  down 
in  some  chapter  of  her  life,  and  it  strikes  me  that  he  will 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  47 

be  the  one  to  find  out  what  it  contains."  Duke  liked  to 
weave  romances  for  other  people,  and  he  was  now  busily 
manufacturing  a  web  for  his  brother  and  Mrs.  Grey. 

Milton  came  home  one  snowy  day  in  the  new  year 
when  the  snow  shone  like  diamond  dust  in  the  winter  sun 
shine.  He  was  a  good-looking  fellow,  very  thoughtful, 
and  grave  and  cold. 

Florence  adored  him  in  silence,  actually  seeming  to  feel 
that  he  was  composed  of  holier  clay  than  herself,  and  Duke 
was  thoroughly  disappointed  in  his  brother  and  not  a  little 
disgusted  to  find  that  because  a  man  studied  for  the  church 
he  should  become  a  solemn  and  silent  misanthrope.  In  his 
inmost  heart  he  thought  it  a  shame  that  all  the  natural  life 
and  spirits  should  be  knocked  out  of,  or  worse  still,  re 
pressed  in,  a  man  because  he  "  takes  care  of  other  people's 
souls.".  For  a  couple  of  weeks  he  had  Milton  steadily 
under  his  mental  microscope;  he  was  much  given  to  study 
ing  people  lately.  "But  it  won't  last"  he  said  aloud  to  him 
self  one  day,  as  he  had  concluded  a  brown  study  con 
vincing  the  present  mental  mould  of  his  brother. 

"  Oft  what  seems  a  trifle, 

A  trifle,  a  mere  nothing  by  itself — 

In  some  nice  situation  turns  the  scale 

Of  fate,  and  rules  the  most  important  actions." 

A  month  had  elapsed  since  Milton  came  home  and 
there  was  a  troubled  look  in  Florence's  face  and  a  shape 
less  fear  in  her  heart.  She  longed  to  take  Duke  into  her 
confidence,  but  being  something  of  a  philosopher,  she 
shrank  from  giving  actual  shape  and  substance  to  her  fears 
by  telling  them. 

The  first  time  that  Milton  and  Mrs.  Grey  met  she  had 
watched  them  attentively,  some  indefinable  impulse  urging 
her  to  do  so,  and  she  had  seen  Mrs.  Grey's  face  blanch  to 
an  awful  whiteness,  and  she  also  noticed  that  she  had 


48  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

avoided  him   since  then.      These  things   worried  her,  but 
she  kept  her  peace. 

"What  do  you  think  of  Mrs.  Grey,  Milton?"  she  said  to 
him  one  day,  in  a  tone  of  apparent  unconcern.  Milton 
lifted  his  quiet  brown  eyes  from  the  book  which  he  was 
reading  and  looked  at  her  in  an  enquiring  manner. 

"  What  do  I  think  of  Mrs.  Grey?"  he  repeated.  "  Well, 
Floy,  I  have  not  thought  much  about  her,  that  is,"  he 
added,  "  I  have  not  tried  to  form  any  opinion  of  her,  if 
that  is  what  you  mean." 

"  But  you  can't  help  seeing  that  she  is  very  nice, 
Milton,"  persisted  his  sister,  gaining  courage  from  his 
evident  indifference  about  the  matter. 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  had  a  very  good  look  at  the  lady, 
yet,"  said  Milton,  laying  down  his  book,  "  but  if  you  say 
that  she  is  nice,  Floy,  I  am  certain  that  she  must  be  so — 
but  she  usually  sits  in  a  corner  and  seems  to  envelop  her 
self  in  shadows  when  I  am  around.  Wait,"  he  con 
tinued,  laughing,  "  'til  I  see  her  in  broad  daylight  and 
then  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  of  \iti  face,  at  least,  if  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  presuming  to  criticise  her." 

Florence  had,  woman-like,  developed  some  match-mak 
ing  abilities,  and  considered  herself  a  necessary  lever  in 
that  subtle  machinery,  as  far  as  the  interests  of  her 
brother  Duke  were  concerned.  That  Milton  should 
renounce  the  church  and  marry,  was  to  her  mind  little  less 
than  a  heinous  crime,  and  the  two  dearest  wishes  of  her 
heart  just  now  were  to  see  Milton  enter  the  church,  and 
Duke  to  marry  Mrs.  Grey. 

Though  Madeline  Grey  was  exceedingly  reticent  about 
her  affairs,  and  never  spoke  of  her  past  life,  Florence 
shared  her  father's  opinions,  and  had  perfect  confidence  in 
her.  If  there  was  some  secret  trouble  in  her  life,  and 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  49 

Florence  could  not  help  thinking  sometimes  that  there  was, 
she  respected  her  silence  on  the  subject,  and  never  con 
sidered  it  as  a  fault,  but  loved  her  all  the  more  because  of 
the  shadow  which  seemed  to  follow  her. 

For  the  present  she  made  up  her  mind  that  there  was  noth 
ing  to  fear  concerning  Milton,  and  she  knew  that  Mrs.  Grey 
was  not  a  woman  to  fall  in  love  with  any  one  in  a  hurry. 

So  little  interested  was  Milton  in  the  study  of  Mrs. 
Grey  that  he  soon  forgot  his  compact  with  Florence,  and 
would  possibly  have  given  her  one  of  his  absent-minded  opin 
ions  the  next  time  she  asked  him  for  it.  But  one  day  a  slight 
circumstance  aroused  a  lazy  sort  of  curiosity  in  him  con 
cerning  her.  He  had  not  noticed  that  she  had  been  avoid 
ing  him,  and  he  came  upon  her  unexpectedly  one  day  in  the 
parlor.  She  was  looking  very  intently  at  an  old  picture  of 
his  upon  the  mantel-piece,  and  did  not  hear  him  approach 
until  he  was  near  her,  and  when  she  turned  her  face  to  him 
it  was  deathly  pale  and  her  lips  were  bloodless.  She 
made  a  movement  as  if  she  would  leave  the  room,  and  he 
saw  that  she  staggered.  He  came  quickly  to  her  side, 
saying  quietly:  "  You  are  not  well  this  morning,  Mrs.  Grey, 
allow  me  to  help  you."  He  led  her  to  a  chair,  and  left 
her,  saying,  "I  will  bring  some  water." 

She  would  fain  have  risen  and  fled  before  he  returned, 
but  something  held  her  there,  as  if  some  powerful  will  had 
laid  its  fiat  upon  her,  and  she  was  compelled  by  it  to  sit 
there  and  await  the  return  of  this  man,  from  whom  she 
might  well  flee  to  the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth,  and  yet 
he  had  never  given  her  a  thought,  much  less  an  evil  one. 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  his  as  he  handed  her  the  glass  of 
water.  There  seemed  to  be  an  unspoken  command  that 
she  should  do  so,  and  it  was  the  very  thing  which  she 
wished  to  avoid. 


50  MARMADUKE     DENVER. 


Milton  was  a  stolid,  undemonstiative  fellow,  and  it 
required  something  almost  miraculous  to  awaken  any 
strong  emotion  in  him.  Just  now  he  felt  only  a  species  of 
curiosity,  mingled  with  some  pity  for  Mrs.  Grey,  and  a 
very  man-like  inclination  to  hand  her  over  to  Florence's 
care.  He  did  not  think  for  a  moment  that  the  mediocre 
likeness  of  himself  upon  the  mantel  had  anything  to  do 
with  her  faintness.  After  that  day  he  saw  but  little  of  her, 
and  the  fact  began  to  dawn  upon  him,  dimly  at  first,  that 
she  was  avoiding  him,  and  he  became  more  convinced  of  it 
from  the  fact  that  when  he  stayed  a  few  days  in  the 
next  town — which  he  did  frequently  of  late — he  could 
learn  from  their  conversation,  when  he  returned,  that 
she  had  been  more  among  them  during  his  absence. 
This,  coupled  with  other  little  things,  which  became  more 
apparent  each  day,  had  the  effect  of  finally  exciting  his 
curiosity,  and  creating  a  desire  to  know  more  about  her. 
It  was  a  decidedly  new  sensation  to  find  a  woman  even 
faintly  mirrored  in  the  dull  lethargic  depths  of  his  mind. 

The  grim  study  of  theology  is  well  calculated  to  con 
geal  the  tender  sap  in  a  man's  heart,  creating  a  sort  of 
frozen  surface  whereon  a  woman's  face  could  hardly  ever 
make  an  impression. 

He  liked  to  look  at  Mrs.  Grey,  because  away  from  her 
his  memory  retained  no  definite  image,  and  this,  he 
thought,  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  she  never  yet  had 
looked  directly  at  him  long  enough  to  allow  him  to  study 
her  face.  When  they  sat  around  the  fire  in  the  winter 
twilight,  she  usually  placed  herself  where  only  an  indistinct 
outline  of  her  face  ard  form  were  visible  to  him,  and 
then  it  was  exceedingly  pleasant  to  listen  to  her  voice 
with  its  low,  sad  cadence,  when  her  face  was  half  hidden 
by  the  flickering  fire  shadows.  Her  conversation,  too, 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  51 

was  singularly  free  from  hackneyed  phrases,  and  was  in 
variably  tempered  with  mild,  but  firm,  individual  opinions, 
given  with  a  soft  decision  that  made  willing  converts  cf 
her  listeners. 

They  all  began  to  notice  that  Milton  made  himself  more 
sociable  lately,  "owing,  no  doubt."  observed  Duke,  "to 
the  cheerful  comfort  of  the  fire  which  brought  them  to 
gether  more.'3 

Duke  generally  accompanied  a  remark  of  this  kind  with 
the  most  innocent  expression,  which  only  those  who  knew 
him  well  could  interpret  into  mild  sarcasm.  Milton  was 
more  sociable  now  and  did  not  pay  as  much  attention  to  his 
studies  as  heretofore,  but  yet  he  did  not  seem  to  bestow 
much  attention  upon  Mrs.  Grey.  If  he  was  studying  her 
he  was  certainly  doing  it  in  about  as  cold  and  deliberate  a 
fashion  as  he  would  with  the  very  driest,  theological 
treatise.  He  had,  however,  made  u.p  his  mind  about  two 
things:  that  she  was  very  beautiful  and  that  she  had  some 
secret  sorrow  which  had  been  unjustly  laid  upon  her  shoul 
ders.  Thinking  about  her,  even  in  this  very  dispassionate 
way,  made  his  conscience  feel  a  reprehensive  twinge,  but 
he  quieted  it  by  the  reflection  that  it  was  certainly  part 
of  his  prospective  calling  to  consider  the  cases  of  those 
who  were  evidently  weighted  down  with  sorrow,  and  he 
honestly  began  to  think  that  he  might  in  time  win  her  con 
fidence,  and  as  a  minister  of  God  try  to  lift  the  burden 
which  seemed  to  be  crushing  her  life  out. 

About  a  month  after  her  meeting  with  Milton  in  the 
parlor,  Madeline  Grey  wrote  the  following  letter  to  her 
mother: 

"  As  a  blight  mars  the  verdure  and  healthfulness  of  a 
tree  or  flower,  sapping  and  searing  it  to  the  very  roots, 
so  again  has  this  misery  come  upon  me.  Oh,  not  comj 


52  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

yet,  dearest,  but  it  is  close  upon  me,  so  near,  so  threaten 
ing  that  I  have  not  strength  enough  to  flee  from  it. 
My  cure  is  so  evenly  mixed  with  poison  that  I  long,  yet 
fear,  to  drink  of  it.  Oh,  why  does  not  God  take  away  this 
dread  burden  from  me!  It  is  a  thousand  times  more 
cruel  than  death.  They  are  all  here  now,  happy,  and  I 
feel  like  a  serpent  among  them,  dangerous  to  them  and 
to  myself.  There  is  one  here  who  looks  like  him.  Advise 
your  poor  MADELINE." 

It  was  several  days  before  the  answer  came,  blurred  with 
tears,  an  unhappy  mother's  heartache  between  every  line, 
yet  blended  with  a  last  feeble  hope. 

"My  poor  child: — If  it  is  as  you  fear  it  would  be  best  to 
come  home  at  once.  You  must  trust  more  and  more  in 
Him  who  is  greatest  in  his  mercy.  Your  returned  health 
will  be  a  strong  shield.  Use  every  effort  to  divest  your 
mind  of  the  past;  in  this  lies  your  greatest  safety.  I  know 
God  will  help  you,  and  give  you  back  your  lost  happiness. 
Come,  if  you  think  it  best.  I  am  praying  for  you. 

MOTHER." 


CHAPTER  V. 

Three  years  had  passed  away.  At  this  time  Pierre 
Lacroix  was  speeding  from  a  distant  part  of  Normandy 
towards  Paris;  he  had  been  hastily  summond  to  a  death-bed 
there,  and  would  not  have  lost  a  moment  for  the  worth  of 
France.  He  took  little  heed  now  of  the  vine-clad  banks 
of  the  Seine,  and  was  utterly  blind  to  the  blue  mountains 
of  Normandy,  whose  graceful  outlines  were  barely  distin 
guishable  from  the  summer  sky — oblivious  to  everything 
save  the  shocking  knowledge  that  the  Princess  de  Carillo 
was  dying. 

Arrived  at  the  Rue  Saint  Domineque,  he  went  quickly 
through  the  gorgeously  pillared  halls  where  masses  of 
dying  flowers  shed  their  petals  at  his  feet.  A  softly  trick 
ling  fountain  alone  broke  the  silence.  Grandeur  impresses 
one  but  sadly  when  the  presence  of  death  chills  its  bright 
ness  and  breathes  an  icy  mist  upon  all  that  was  wont  to 
glitter.  He  had  been  often  in  that  house  before;  its  mag 
nificence  had  pleased  his  artist  eyes,  its  music  and  flowers 
had  charmed  him,  but  to-day  every  one  of  its  beauties 
palled  upon  him;  the  mirrors  flashing  from  the  walls  seemed 
to  mock  at  him,  the  marble  pillars  were  like  so  many  grave 
stones,  the  whole  house  a  gorgeous,  gloomy  vault.  A 
minute  more  and  he  was  ushered  into  the  chamber  of 
death.  The  attendant  left  him  noiselessly  and  he  found 
himself  gazing  upon  a  sad  and  strange  scene.  Between 
the  opening  of  the  heavy  bed-curtains  he  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  pallid  face;  it  seemed  to  him  like  the  shadowy  face 
one  sees  in  a  dream,  and  he  saw  it  as  if  through  a  mist. 
The  faculty  of  hearing  is  wonderfully  acute  in  the  dying. 
He  had  not  been  announced,  yet  she  knew  that  he  was 


54  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

there,  and  she  motioned  to  him  to  come  nearer,  with  the 
same  old  smile  upon  her  poor  white  face,  as  if  there  was 
nothing  wrong. 

There  are  some  warm  natures  among  human-kind 
that  are  fond  and  foolish  and  brave  enough  to  be  angry 
even  with  death,  wanting  to  drive  it  forth,  to  fight  it 
away. 

Pierre  Lacroix  had  no  religion.  God  was  a  mere  myth 
to  him.  He  could  not  pray  even  for  the  greatest  boon  that 
prayer  could  bring,  but,  instead,  his  loving  heart,  his 
strong  arm,  his  life,  were  ready  to  be  offered — to  be  inter 
posed  between  death  and  those  whom  he  loved.  There 
was  chivalry  enough  in  his  heart  now  to  fight  a  thousand 
deaths,  could  it  be  done,  to  give  this  woman  life.  He 
approached  the  bedside,  but  could  not  utter  a  word. 
Our  deeper  emotions  seldom  reach  the  lips.  With  the  keen 
instinct  of  those  about  to  die,  she  understood  much  of 
what  he  felt.  She  held  out  a  thin,  transparent  hand  to 
him,  and  then,  like  the  last  flush  of  a  dying  sunset,  a 
faint  tinge  of  color  replaced  the  deadly  whiteness  of  her 
face.  She  had  waited  for  the  last  moments  before  she 
ssnt  for  him,  and  for  what?  The  aching  outcries  of  the 
heart  are  seldom  heard;  many  of  them  we  dare  not  utter; 
sometimes  they  can  be  read,  but  are  not  always  written. 
Pierre  Lacroix  could  easily  read  a  pitiful  want  in  the  dying 
face,  and  he  knew  also  that  she  would  ask  for  nothing. 
He  had  heard  of  her  illness,  but  never  dreamed  that  it  had 
come  to  this.  He  knew  now  that  she  had  waited  until  the 
last  before  she  sent  for  him,  and  impotently  cursed 
himself  for  not  finding  out  the  true  state  of  affairs  before  it 
was  too  late. 

Question  and  answer  passed  between  them  without  words, 
a  despairing  query  in  the  dying  eyes  and  an  answer  in  the 
stricken  face  of  the  man  whose  heart  bled  for  her. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  55 


He  raised  the  wan  hand  to  his  lips  and  bowed  his  head 
low  over  it;  there  was  little  need  of  words  here.  In  her 
faithful  heart  she  said,  "  //  is  better  not'"  in  his,  he  said, 
"  //  is  too  late,  now." 

She  felt  his  hot  tears  dropping  upon  her  hand,  as  it  lay 
in  his  amid  a  long  silence.  She  felt,  and  he  knew  it, 
as  a  modest  being  who  sends  for  a  physician  and  must 
needs  show  wounds  which  they  fain  would  hide.  She  had 
sent  for  him  and  yet  could  not  show  him  the  miserable  heart- 
sore  which  had  never  healed. 

"  It  is  better,  Monsieur  Lacroix,"  she  said  at  length,  as 
if  resuming  a  conversation  which  had  occurred  only  in 
both  their  thoughts,  "and  it  is  not  so  awful  to  die  after 
all,  when  it  comes  near.  I  am  glad  that  this " 

"Die!"  he  interrupted  almost  fiercely,  "you  must  not 
speak  like  that,  madame."  He  could  think  of  the 
possibility  of  her  death,  although  certain  of  its  nearness, 
yet  to  hear  it  from  her  own  lips,  was  like  receiving  a  stab 
into  a  fresh  wound.  It  was  terrible  to  him  to  hear  her 
speak  of  death  with  the  light  and  brightness  of  youth  in  her 
eyes.  She  seemed  to  grow  more  beautiful  as  the  embrace 
of  death  closed  around  her. 

"  Ah!  ne'er  was  beauty's  dawn  so  bright, 

So  touching,  as  that  form's  decay 
Which,  like  the  altar's  trembling  light, 

In  holy  lustre  fades  away." 

The  doctors  had  diagnosed  the  case,  and  had  dignified 
it  with  some  unpronounceable  name,  but  it  had  simplified 
the  matter  soon  enough  by  turning  into  rapid  consumption 
"of  the  heart,"  thought  the  poor  patient  with  a  smile, 
which  was  an  equal  mixture  of  grief  and  gladness. 

She  lay  back  upon  the  pillows  now,  completely  exhausted. 
This  last  scene,  which  she  had  dreaded  and  longed  for, 
was  too  much  for  her  waning  strength.  A  faint  pressure 


56  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

of  his  hand  as  he  gently  released  hers,  told  him  that  she 
was  still  conscious;  then  a  faint  whisper — he  had  to  bend 
low  to  hear  it:  "  You  will  write  to  him  and  say  good-bye 
for  me.  It  will  be  all  over  soon.  I — want — him — to — 
be — happy;  come — again — to-morrow;  you — are — very — 
good." 

Pierre  Lacroix  left  the  room  softly,  and  the  house  very 
quickly.  "It  is  impossible,  I  fear/'  he  said  to  himself,  as 
if  following  out  some  train  of  thought,  as  soon  as  he  reached 
the  street,  "  but  I  will  try.  Great  God!  what  an  idiot  I 
have  been;  I  should  have  been  here  long  ago.  True,  she 
would  never  see  him  living,  but  it  would  make  her  death 
less  bitter.  I  think  she  would  see  him  now."  The  poor 
fellow  began  to  hope  wildly,  and  against  all  reason,  that 
Duke  Denver  could  get  to  Paris  before  she  died;  aye, 
Pierre  Lacroix,  a  scoffer  at  prayers  and  miracles,  prayed 
now  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  that  she  might  live  until 
Duke  came,  and  bslieved  that  his  presence  would,  miracle- 
like,  save  her  from  death.  He  rushed  to  his  rooms  and 
searched  with  feverish  haste  for  Duke's  address,  and  then 
hurried  to  the  nearest  telegraph  office.  "Come  quickly," 
he  said,  "the  princess  is  dying;  lose  not  a  moment." 

He  had  dared  to  do  this  and  felt  relieved  when  it  was 
done.  He  knew  that  Duke  would  come,  and  he  would 
dare  to  bring  him  to  her;  he  would  save  her  in  spite  of 
herself. 

He  knew  also  that  Hortense  de  Carillo's  lips  would 
never  say,  "Let  him  look  upon  my  dead  face,"  but  that 
her  heart  cried  out  for  it. 

After  Pierre  had  left  the  chamber  of  the  princess,  the 
door  of  an  ante-chamber  opened  and  a  young  girl  entered. 
She  came  into  the  room  with  such  a  softly  gliding  move 
ment  that  she  might  have  been  taken  for  a  beautiful  appari- 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  57 

tion.  She  was  dressed  in  a  splendid  robe  of  gold  colored 
satin,  half  covered  with  rich  lace.  Her  neck  and  shoul 
ders  were  quite  bare,  save  for  a  necklace  of  natural  rose 
buds  and  leaves,  whose  dewy  loveliness  seemed  fitting 
ornament  for  the  fair  young  flesh  which  they  seemed 
to  caress.  The  rich  dress  looked  more  suitable  for  an 
older  person,  and  the  sweet,  child-like  face,  seeming  to 
rise  from  a  circlet  of  flowers,  was  a  unique  contrast  to 
the  dress,  and  the  massive  jeweled  bracelets,  which  were 
much  too  heavy  for  the  small  wrists.  She  was  a  very  lovely, 
but  strangely  inconsistent  picture  in  that  chamber  of 
death. 

"You  are  already  dressed,  my  love/'  murmured  the 
princess,  as  the  girl  approached  her.  ' «  How  beautiful 
you  look!  Come  nearer,"  she  added,  and  she  took  the 
girl's  hand  and  put  it  to  her  lips.  To  have  this  girl,  so 
full  of  youth  and  life  near  her,  seemed  to  imbue  the 
dying  woman  with  new  vitality.  Her  eyes  brightened, 
and  her  face  became  animated,  and  she  seemed  to  feed  her 
sinking  spirit  from  the  magnificent  largess  of  the  girl's 
youth  and  health. 

"You  sing  to-night  before  the  Empress,  Veronica. 
How  I  wish  I  were  there  to  see  your  triumph!  I  know 
it  will  surely  be  one.  The  Empress  herself  will  fall  in 
love  with  my  singing  bird,"  she  continued,  smiling,  "you 
are  so  lovely  and  so  good — so  good.  But  you  have  an 
hour  yet,  mon  cher,"  she  said  looking  at  her  watch,  "and 
it  would  be  charming  to  hear  the  rest  of  your  history. 
I  think  we  stopped  last  night  at  the  beginning  of  your  love 
affair." 

"  Dear  madame,  you  dignify  it  by  too  grand  a  name," 
replied  the  girl,  blushing.  "Poor  girls  do  not  dare  to 
love  great  people.  They  only  worship  at  a  distance,  and 


58  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

Monsieur  was  only  kind  and  charitable  to  me;  oh,  so  good 
and  kind!"  she  exclaimed,  clasping  her  hands  together. 
"  It  made  me  good.  I  could  think  of  nothing  evil.  I  could 
do  nothing  evil  while  I  thought  of  his  kind  face  and  his 
gentle  voice,  and — and — I  was  thinking  of  him  all  the 
time,  and  I  still  think  of  him,"  she  added,  after  a  short 
pause,  as  she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 

"  And  he  went  away?"  said  the  princess,  softly. 

"  And  he  went  away,"  echoed  the  girl,  her  bosom  heav 
ing  now,  and  her  eyes  filling  with  tears,  "  and  I  searched 
and  sang  for  him  from  door  to  door,  and  then  from  city  to 
city,  but  he  never  heard  me  until — until —  "  here  the  small 
mouth  quivered  and  she  hung  down  her  head,  as  if  the 
bearing  of  her  long  concealed  secret  was  a  shame. 

"  Until  he  was  hurt,"  said  the  princess,  "and  went 
home  to  America.  But  you  shall  see  him  again,  Veronica. 
Monsieur  Denver  will  come  back  again  to  you." 

The  princess  lay  back  upon  the  pillows  now,  her  eyes 
closed  and  her  lips  moved  as  if  in  prayer.  It  must  have 
been  communion  with  God  in  the  unreadable  language  of 
the  soul,  intelligible  only  to  Him.  There  was  an  inde 
scribable  radiance  in  her  eyes,  when  she  turned  them 
again  upon  Veronica — a  light  such  as  a  star  might  have 
lent  to  them.  She  drew  the  girl's  head  down  to  her  and, 
kissed  the  fresh,  young  lips  Imgeringly.  "You  shall  see 
him  again,  sweet,"  she  murmured.  "When  you  do,  tell 
him  that  I loved  you ." 

That  night  while  the  plaudits  of  a  vast  multitude,  were 
ringing  in  the  theatre  Francaise,  and  the  young  prima  donna 
was  almost  smothered  beneath  the  flowers,  which  literally 
rained  upon  her,  the  spirit  of  Hortense  de  Carillo  was 
winging  its  way  from  earth. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  59 


A  hopeless  and  desperate  man  walked  the  streets  of 
Paris  as  the  bright  spring  sun  lighted  up  the  roofs  and 
shining  spires  of  that  great  city.  His  heart  almost  as  dead 
and  cold  as  that  of  the  loved  one  who  lay  beneath  a  marble 
slab  in  Pere-la-Chaise.  Marmaduke  Denver  had  arrived 
in  Paris  the  day  after  the  princess  had  been  buried.  In 
his  quiet  American  home  he  had  been  growing  calmly 
content.  His  dormant  love  had  hedged  him  round  like 
a  delicate  lattice  work,  through  which  he  had  learned  to 
gaze  out  upon  the  world  in  subdued  sorrow.  The  memory 
of  this  hopeless  love  became  a  hallowed  thing,  which  was  as 
pure  and  holy  as  it  was  hopeless,  but  the  shock  of  her 
death  had  completely  shattered  this  beautiful  illusion, 
which  might  have  been  a  holy  seam  in  the  fabric  of  his 
life.  He  felt  now  as  if  the  light  of  the  world  had  gone 
out  forever,  for  him,  and  a  pitiful  numbness  had  grasped 
every  faculty.  There  was  only  one  thing  clearly  before 
his  mind,  and  that  was,  that  which  he  thought  he  had 
conquered  was  only  sleeping,  and  had  now  arisen  with 
renewed  strength  so  assert  itself. 

He  knew  now  why  she  died — he  knew  also,  too  late,  why 
she  would  not  send  for  him,  and  the  knowledge  was  ter 
rible. 

To  love  and  lose  is,  indeed,  like  unto  standing  upon 
heaven's  threshold,  and  drinking  for  a  space  of  its  intoxicat 
ing  pleasures.  To  be  driven  away,  and  remain  forever 
thirsting  for  that  which  is  irrevocably  lost,  is  but  a  faint 
comparison  to  the  sufferings  of  those  who  have  truly  loved 
and  lost. 

Oh,  love!  thou  art  a  powerful  factor  for  good  or  evil; 
searing  and  blighting  like  a  curse,  or  blessing  us  with  the 
greatest  earthly  happiness,  dispersing  the  darkest  shadows, 
or  bringing  darkness  to  the  brightest  places.  Thou  art  a 


60  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

priceless  jewel  in  the  humblest  home,  and  miraculous  as 
the  wand  of  a  magician,  and  without  thee  we  are  as  the 
unripened  fruit  and  colorless  flowers. 

Pierre  Lacroix's  great  heart  throbbed  in  unison  with  the 
grief  of  his  young  friend,  and  he  wished  that  he  had  not 
summoned  him  at  what  was  indeed  the  "  eleventh  hour." 
He  knew  that  Duke's  love  for  the  princess,  as  the  wife  of 
another  man,  would  ever  be  a  thing  apart  from  selfishness 
or  sin — that  it  became  purer  and  holier  with  time.  He 
understood  also,  as  well  as  Duke  himself,  that  he  had 
manfully  resolved  never  to  look  upon  her  face  again,  and 
would  be  content  if  he  only  knew  that  she  had  put  him 
out  of  her  heart;  but  Pierre  felt  that  all  this  was  changed, 
now,  that  his  telegram  had  revealed  a  thousand  things 
that  he  had  better  never  have  known,  and  that  Duke 
would  now  regard  himself  as  the  destroyer  of  her  life  and 
happiness. 

People  had  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  young  girl  who 
had  bent  over  the  dead  princess,  and  clung  so  passionately 
to  the  lifeless  lips.  There  was  no  society  reserve  to  stem 
the  natural  outflow  of  the  singing  girl's  love  and  grief,  and 
Veronica  Venella  nearly  broke  her  young  heart  when  they 
bore  away  her  kindly  benefactress  from  her  sight  forever. 

Looking  upon  her  grave  in  the  gorgeous  cemetery  of 
Pere-la-Chaise  was  a  poor  sort  of  comfort,  but  it  was  the 
only  spot  in  the  world  in  which  Duke  had  any  interest  now, 
and  Paris,  with  all  its  brightness,  was  a  hideous  desert  to 
him.  He  came  to  the  cemetery  every  evening,  when  the 
frost  was  crisping  the  grass  and  early  flowers.  He  was 
later  than  usual  one  evening,  and  it  was  quite  dark  when 
he  reached  there.  He  could  distinguish  a  woman  bending 
over  the  grave  in  an  attitude  of  prayer,  and  he  saw  that  she 
held  some  flowers  which  she  touched  with  her  lips,  and 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  6 I 

then  laid  them  tenderly  and  reverently  upon  the  grave. 
Her  rich  dress  was  trailing  upon  the  damp  earth,  and  when 
she  stooped  to  gather  it  up,  the  shawl  fell  back  from  her 
head,  and  the  moonlight  showed  a  face  that  Duke  thought 
he  had  seen  before.  She  had  now  seen  and  recognized 
him,  and  drew  back  tremblingly,  as  though  about  to  fall, 
but  he  came  quickly  to  her  side,  saying  in  a  gentle,  reas 
suring  voice,  "Veronica?" 

"Yes,"  she  replied  simply,  "  lam  Veronica;  and  you — 
you  are  Monsieur  Denver  ?" 

He  took  her  face  between  his  hands,  and  raised  it  to 
the  moonlight,  gazing  into  it  long  and  earnestly. 

"  You  knew  tier,  Veronica  ?"  he  said,  very  softly. 

"Yes,  oh,  yes,  Monsieur,"  she  replied  sadly,  "and  she 
bade  me  tell  you  that  she  loved  me" 

He  still  held  her  face  between  his  hands,  as  if  she  had 
been  a  child,  and  there  were  great  tears  in  his  eyes  as  he 
bent  lower  and  reverently  kissed  the  unresisting  mouth, 
and  then,  taking  her  by  the  hand,  he  led  her  to  her  home. 

Hortense  de  Carillo  would  fain  have  lived  to  complete 
the  work  which  she  had  so  nobly  conceived,  but  even  now 
above  her  grave  the  unseen  chain  was  forming,  which 
would  link  those  two  young  lives  together.  That  this  girl 
should  be  the  saving  angel  who  would  lift  Duke's  heart  out 
of  the  withered  weeds  in  which  it  lay  buried,  had  been  the 
cherished  ambition  of  her  heart. 

Veronica  lived  with  her  mother  in  a  pleasant  home 
which  the  generosity  of  the  princess  had  provided  for 
them.  She  was  now  the  youthful  star  of  an  opera  com 
pany  which  was  about  to  travel,  and  they  were  to  sing 
only  one  night  more  in  Paris. 

"  You  will  come  to  hear  me  sing,"  she  said  one  even 
ing  to  Duke  and  Pierre.  "We  are  going  away."  The 


' 


CAI 


62  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

girl  longed  that  Duke  should  hear  her  and  she  felt  that 
his  presence  would  be  dearer  to  her  than  that  of  ten  thous 
and  people. 

Going  to  a  theatre  now  would  have  been  ghastly  even 
in  thought  to  Duke  and  his  friend,  but  it  was  "  to  hear 
Veronica,"  and  they  would  go.  It  was  the  last  night  of 
opera  in  Paris,  aye,  and  they  little  thought  that  it  was  the 
last  amusement  that  the  gay  city  should  see  for  a  long 
time,  or  that  the  red  cloud  of  war  which  was  now  gathering 
over  unhappy  France  would  drench  the  nation  in  blood 
in  a  few  weeks. 

They  went  to  hear  the  young  debutante  sing.  They  were 
both  very  fond  of  music — Pierre  passionately  so.  They 
found  that  the  young  Sicilian  star  was  "all  the  rage." 
People  were  wondering — as  they  do  when  rich  volumes  of 
music  well  up  from  the  tiny  bosom  of  a  bird — where  the 
wondrous  wealth  of  voice  came  from,  when  they  beheld 
the  small,  frail  form  of  the  singer. 

Veronica's  voice  had  in  it  a  rare  quality;  its  strongest 
notes  were  tremulous  and  sympathetic.  It  was  a  voice 
"  with  tears  in  it  "  that  seemed  to  reach  the  heart  like  a 
balm,  soothing  and  healing  and  awakening  feelings  that 
lay  deeply  buried.  It  was  like  a  magic  key  opening  the 
locked  chambers  of  the  heart  and  bringing  forth  goodness 
that  might  have  lain  forever  hidden. 

Veronica  came  upon  the  stage  nervously  and  looked 
straight  at  the  audience,  as  if  she  would  fain  find  her 
friends'  faces.  The  poor  child  felt  that  the  theatre  would 
be  empty  if  they  were  not  there.  The  small,  child-like 
form  in  its  old-fashioned  dress,  the  complete  absence  of 
theatrical  "make-up,"  and  her  perfectly  natural  manner, 
brought  her  closely  to  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  they 
greeted  her  night  after  night  with  a  generous  meed  of  hon 
est  love  in  their  applause. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  63 


When  the  opera  was  over  they  went  to  the  green  room 
where  her  mother  was  waiting  for  her,  and  took  them 
home.  Duke  felt  refreshed  and  pleased.  This  evening 
had,  indeed,  bsen  like  an  oasis  in  his  desert,  and  Pierre 
was  in  ecstasies  with  Veronica's  singing.  When  they  bade 
her  good  night  she  came  out  to  the  door  and  held  out  her 
hand  the  second  time  to  Duke  in  a  excess  of  child-like 
pleasure.  It  had  been  a  very  happy  night  to  her,  they  had 
been  her  audience  and  she  had  sung  only  to  them,  and  had 
forgotten  the  rest  of  the  people. 

Whether  it  was  her  unconventional,  trusting  manner,  or 
the  extremely  youthful  form,  he  could  not  tell,  but  Duke 
could  only  look  upon  her  as  a  child — still  like  the  little 
singer  in  the  streets  of  Florence — and  he  stooped  and 
kissed  the  beautiful  lips. 

Two  days  later  Pierre  Lecroix  joined  the  ranks  of  a 
volunteer  regiment  to  assist  in  the  war  against  Germany, 
and  Duke  flung  himself  into  it  with  as  much  enthusiasm 
as  a  desperate  man  could  command. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Florence  Denver  was  puzzled.  Duke  had  gone  away 
so  suddenly  and  had  scarcely  given  any  explanation;  she 
knew  that  someone  was  very  ill  and  that  was  all.  Duke 
had  told  her  so  with  poorly  feigned  unconcern,  but  his  face 
had  contradicted  it,  and  she  knew  that  it  was  a  deeper 
grief  to  him  than  he  would  admit. 

William  Denver  was  pained  to  see  him  go  away  again 
and  felt  that  he  was  going  to  lose  him  just  as  he  had 
flattered  himself  that  the  boy  had  had  enough  of  "that 
confounded  Paris  with  all  its  works  and  pomps." 

Florence  had  loved  to  hold  counsel  with  Duke  about  her 
little  fears  and  troubles,  Milton  was  so  very  reticent  and 
Mrs.  Grey  was  like  a  beautiful  but  sealed  book  to  her, 
and  she  was  terribly  afraid  that  Milton  was  falling  in  love. 
The  time  for  his  return  to  college  had  come  and  gone 
and  he  did  not  seem  to  notice  it. 

Mrs.  Grey  was,  if  possible,  sweeter  and  kinder  than  ever, 
but  she  very  plainly  avoided  Milton.  Florence  would  fain 
have  asked  her  about  the  matter,  but  there  was  always  a 
something  in  her  manner  that  forbade  any  approach  to  it, 
and  she  knew  that  the  strangely  silent  woman  could  never 
be  questioned  on  any  subject  relating  to  herself. 

Mrs.  Grey  had  spoken  lately  about  going  away.  Kata- 
line  could  be  sent  to  school  now,  and  she  gently  intimated 
that  her  presence  would  be  no  longer  necessary.  After 
that  Milton  seemed  to  watch  her  movements  more  closely, 
and  availed  himself  of  the  smallest  excuse  to  see  and 
speak  to  her,  but  she  gave  him  little  opportunity  to  do  so, 
until  one  day  when  Florence  had  driven  to  the  depot  in 


MARMADUKE     DENVER.  65 

the  next  town  to  meet  Harold  Hereford,  who  was  coming 
to  spend  a  week  at  the  farm. 

Milton  had  seen  Mrs.  Grey  walking  in  the  garden  alone. 
She  had  done  so  since  the  spring  days  had  come;  she 
loved  to  watch  the  tender  green  grass,  that  commenced  to 
peep  above  the  ground,  and  the  budding  trees  that  already 
showed  a  dim  coloring  of  green. 

She  was  standing  at  the  farthest  end  of  the  garden,  gaz 
ing  out  upon  the  bleak  expanse  of  country  that  had  not 
yet  commenced  to  don  its  spring  garb.  She  seemed  to  be 
taking  a  long,  last  look  at  everything,  and  when  she  turned 
to  retrace  her  steps,  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes.  Milton 
was  walking  straight  towards  her;  he  was  sorry  to  hear  her 
speak  of  going  away,  and  at  once  attributed  her  tears  to 
that  cause.  With  this  thought  in  his  mind,  he  said  ' '  I  hope 
you  are  not  going  to  leave  us,  Mrs.  Grey,  we  would  all  miss 
you  very  much." 

She  looked  at  him  through  the  mist  in  her  eyes,  and 
said  quietly,  "  I  shall  be  sorry  to  go.  I  have  been  very 
happy  here,  but  the  time  has  come  when  I  must  return  to 
my  home."  They  were  walking  towards  the  house  now, 
and  he  stopped  and  said,  "  Will  you  walk  with  me  a  little 
more?  I  am  also  going  away  very  soon." 

"  You  are  going  back  to  college?"  she  said. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "  I  am  not  going  back." 

"  Not  going  back,"  she  answered  with  a  good  deal  of 
surprise  in  her  face,  "  not  going  to  finish  your  studies?" 

"No,  Mrs.  Grey,"  he  replied,  smiling.  "I  have  lost 
my  vocation.  I  would  make  but  a  sorry  churchman,  at 
best,  and  I  have  given  up  the  notion  entirely." 

Mrs.  Grey  was  not  a  Catholic,  but  she  had  a  deep  rev 
erence  for  churchmen  of  any  denomination,  and  regarded 
any  defection  of  this  kind  as  little  short  of  sacrilege. 


66  MARMAMUKE    DENVER. 

"Oh,  no;"  she  said  in  a  protesting  way,  "you  must  not 
give  up  so  easily."  She  was  looking  at  him  with  beseech 
ing  eyes,  and  there  was  a  weak  quavering  note  in  her  voice. 
"  It  was  your  own  choice,"  she  continued,  "and  you  will 
never  be  happy  in  any  other  path  of  life,  and  I  think  you 
will  return  to  it  after — after — awhile."  She  seemed  to 
substitute  the  while  for  something  else  that  was  in  her 
thoughts  just  then. 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  he  replied.  "I  was  never  an  enthu 
siast  about  the  matter.  I  shall  never  be  a  priest,"  he  said, 
turning  and  standing  directly  in  front  of  her,  "because  I 
love  you,  Mrs.  Grey." 

She  must  have  known  what  was  coming,  and  had  been 
prepared  for  it,  because  her  answer  was  too  methodical, 
and  came  readily  and  coldly: 

"  I  am  very  sorry  for  this,  Mr.  Denver,  because  I  do  not 
love  you." 

Her  answer  did  not  seem  to  surprise  him,  and  there  was 
a  cool  determination  in  his  manner  as  his  hand  closed  with 
a  tighter  pressure  upon  hers.  He  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  take  this  for  an  answer,  because  he  did  not  believe  her. 

She  was  a  strange  woman  in  all  her  ways,  and  he  had 
half  expected  that  she  would  also  be  different  from  other 
women  in  her  love  affairs.  He  understood  her  enough  to 
know  that  begging  or  pleading  with  her  would  be  utterly 
useless;  that  a  stronger  will  than  her  own  would  be  the  only 
power  that  she  would  submit  to. 

To  anyone  else  her  answer  would  have  seemed  an 
unnecessarily  heartless  one,  but  he  did  not  think  of  it  in 
that  way,  because  he  did  not  believe  it,  and  he  was  certain 
that  she  was  holdinga  powerful  rein  upon  her  feelings. 

"I  must  go  into  the  house,"  she  said,  "  Kataline  is 
alone;"  and  she  tried  to  release  her  hand,  which  he  still 


MARMADUKE     DENVER.  67 


held,  but  he  raised  it  and  held  it  now  closely  against  his 
bosom . 

"  Kataline  is  all  right,"  he  said,  very  coolly,  "  I  hear 
her  at  the  piano.  You  shall  not  go  until  you  tell  me  the 
truth" 

There  was  a  quiet,  but  powerful  mastery  in  his  voice, 
which  she  seemed  to  feel,  and  when  he  said,  "We  will 
walk  a  little  longer,"  she  turned,  without  a  word,  and 
walked  very  submissively  beside  him.  When  they  had 
reached  the  end  of  the  walk,  he  turned  and  faced  her 
again,  looking  steadily  into  the  eyes  which  she  tried  in  vain 
to  avert  from  him. 

"  Madeline,  I  will  not  take  that  answer.  You  are  a 
truthful  woman,  and  that  was  not  the  truth."  There  was 
not  an  atom  of  entreaty  in  his  tone.  It  was  more  like  a 
command. 

"What  is  not  true?"  she  answered  weakly.  "  I  have  told 
you  nothing  but  the  truth." 

He  could  see  that  she  was  only  trying  to  gain  time  to 
parry;  that  she  knew  very  well  what  he  meant,  but  he  gave 
her  no  time. 

"  You  said  a  moment  ago  that  you  did  not  love  me; 
that  was  not  true.  I  know  that  you  love  me,  and  I  want 
you  to  say  so."  He  was  holding  both  her  hands  so  tightly 
that  they  must  have  hurt  her,  and  kept  his  eyes  upon  her 
almost  sternly. 

"  I  dare  not.  It  would  do  no  good,"  she  almost  wailed, 
letting  her  head  fall  upon  her  bosom. 

"But  you  do  love  me,"  he  persisted,  in  the  same 
unchanged  voice,  if  and  you  will  tell  me  so  now." 

Her  answer,  which  came  slowly,  was  like  an  effort  born 
of  infinite  pain,  and  he  had  to  bend  low  to  catch  it. 

"  Yes;  but " 


68  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

His  cruel  grasp  upon  her  hands  relaxed  in  an  instant, 
and  his  arms  were  around  her,  drawing  her  closely  to  him. 

"  But  it  is  useless,"  she  began  again;  "I  cannot — there 
is —  "  but  his  lips  prevented  her  from  saying  more. 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  say,  my  love;  I  don't  care  what 
the  trouble  is;  I  don't  want  to  hear  it.  You  love  me,  and 
that  will  make  everything  right." 

He  little  knew  that  because  she  loved  him  it  would  make 
everything  wrong  and  wretched,  that  il  was  what  she  had 
most  dreaded,  and  had  sought  to  avoid;  that  because  of 
it  her  life  would  henceforth  be,  not  one  of  happiness,  but 
of  incurable  pain. 

They  had  entered  the  house  now,  and  he  led  her  to 
a  chair  in  the  parlor;  she  could  not  have  stood  a  moment 
longer,  and  she  sank  into  it  in  sheer  exhaustion.  He 
brought  a  chair  and  sat  near  her,  holding  one  of  her  hands 
fondly  in  his. 

"  You  are  not  sorry  for  telling  me  the  truth,  my  darling," 
he  said,  raising  her  hand  to  his  lips. 

"  But  you  are  to  enter  the  church,"  she  said,  after  a 
little  silence.  "What  would  the  world  say  of  you  and  of 
me  ?  Is  it  not  considered,  in  your  community,  a  sort  of 
disgrace  to  combat  or  renounce  your  vocation  ?" 

"  I  believe  so,"  he  said,  a  little  impatiently,  "  but  that 
comes  of  our  being  so  much  a  community  of  one  idea. 
If  we  were  less  so,  we  would  be  much  happier.  What  is 
the  world  to  you  and  me,  Madeline  ?"  he  continued 
warmly.  "  Why  should  its  opinions  hinder  our  happiness, 
or  hem  us  in?  If  you  were  my  wife,  I  could  laugh  at  the 
worst  verdict  the  world  could  give.  We  would  be  happy 
enough  to  defy  ten  worlds." 

"But  we  cannot,"  she  replied  sadly;  "we  cannot 
always  do  what  our  hearts  dictate." 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  69 

"  We  have  a  right  to  do  what  our  hearts  dictate.  We 
should  make  our  own  world,  and  if  we  did,  the  other  one 
would  soon  forget  us." 

Mrs.  Grey  was  standing  now,  and  was  nervously  folding 
and  unfolding  a  scrap  of  paper,  which  she  had  taken  from 
the  table. 

"  Your  family,  your  father  would  never  forgive  me,"  she 
said  slowly.  "  They  want  you  to  be  a  priest;  I  can  never 
marry  you,  Milton."  She  had  moved  away  from  him,  as 
if  to  gather  strength  to  say  this.  Whatever  were  her  rea 
sons  for  refusing  him,  this  was  plainly  but  an  excuse  with 
which  she  tried  to  conceal  the  real  cause. 

An  impatient  answer  rose  to  his  lips,  but  he  repressed 
it,  as  he  saw  the  terrible  depth  of  pain  in  her  eyes.  He 
followed  her,  and  took  her  hands  again.  "That  is  all 
nonsense,  Madeline,"  he  said;  "  thousands  of  men  have 
done  the  same.  The  Catholic  Church  does  not  want 
luke-warm  apostles,  neither  is  it  a  tyrant  that  compels  unwil 
ling  votaries.  I  am  my  own  master,  and  shall  choose  for 
myself.  You  shall  be  my  wife,  Madeline,  and  I  will  take 
no  refusal." 

The  noise  of  wheels  warned  them  that  Florence  and 
Harold  Hereford  had  returned.  Mrs.  Grey^made  a  move 
ment  to  leave  the  room,  and  he  released  her  hand  sud 
denly,  only  to  put  both  arms  around  her  for  a  moment, 
holding  her  close  to  him,  and  then  let  her  go. 

When  she  was  gone,  he  stoopedand  picked  up  the  scrap 
of  crumpled  paper  which  she  had  dropped.  It  was  a 
twisted  unsightly  thing,  but  every  fold  and  crease  could 
tell  more  of  mental  misery,  more  of  despair,  than  words 
could  ever  have  told. 

Mrs.  Grey  went  quickly  to  her  room;  she  was  glad  to 
get  away.  Her  heart  had  been  forming  answers  to  his 


70  MARMADrKK     DKNVER. 

arguments,  but  she  could  not  utter  them  while  he  was  there 
looking  at  her.  It  was  only  of  /its  happiness  that  she 
thought  now — -there  could  be  none  for  her.  She  should 
let  her  hidden  love  burn  itself  out,  even  though  it  con 
sumed  her  life.  To  keep  suffering  away  from  him,  to  con 
vince  him  by  some  clever  argument  that  they  would  be 
better  apart,  were  the  things  paramount  in  her  thoughts. 

Whatever  her  miserable  secret  was,  it  confronted  her 
now  like  a  hideous  spectre,  and  stood  grimly  between  her 
and  her  happiness — pointing  with  a  warning  finger  to  the 
danger  lying  in  her  path.  She  sat  in  the  window,  staring 
with  wide,  dry  eyes  into  the  night,  fighting  the  miserable 
battle  that  had  self  for  an  opponent — and  self  was 
triumphant,  and  a  heart-beaten  woman  left  the  window 
only  when  the  first  faint  streaks  in  the  east  warned  her 
that  it  was  morning. 

There  was  wonderful  sunshine  in  Florence's  face  next 
morning,  when  she  came  into  Mrs.  Grey's  room  and 
kissed  her  in  bed. 

"  Do  you  know  that  someone  came  last  night  ?''  she  said. 
"  Try  and  guess  who." 

"Oh,  easy  enough  to  guess,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Grey. 
"  How  long  is  *  somebody  '  going  to  stay  ?" 

"Oh,  maybe  a  week — perhaps  a  whole  day — one  can 
never  tell  anything  about  his  movements." 

"  Florence,"  said  Mrs.  Grey,  after  a  pause,  and  she 
made  an  effort  to  look  cheerful,  "  I  must  begin  to  think 
about  going  away  very  soon.  Now  don't  say  anything 
against  it,  dear,"  she  added,  smiling,  and  putting  her  hand 
over  Florence's  mouth;  "  mamma  is  getting  quite  anxious 
for  my  return." 

Florence's  face  fell  upon  hearing  this.  They  had  come 
to  look  upon  Mrs.  Grey  as  a  member  of  the  family,  and 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


they  were  anxious  that  she  should  remain  with  them. 
Florence  was  thoughtful  for  awhile,  and  when  she  spoke 
there  was  an  unusual  note  of  quiet  resolution  in  her  voice. 

"  Mrs.  Grey,  has — will   you   tell    me  has  Milton  - 
She  had  struck  the  right  key,  and  before  she  could  finish, 
Mrs.   Grey  answered   quickly,  "  Yes,   Florence,  he  has— 
and  now  you  know,  dear,"  she  added  faintly,  "that  it  is 
time  to  go." 

Florence  arose  silently,  but  stooped  again  and  kissed 
the  pale  face,  without  a  word,  and  left  the  room. 

Mrs.  Grey  complained  of  a  headache,  and  did  not  leave 
her  room  that  day.  Next  morning,  when  Milton  and 
Harold  had  gone  to  the  next  town,  she  arose  and  walked 
with  Florence  in  the  garden.  They  were  both  very  silent 
as  people  usually  are  who  have  much  to  say  upon  a  subject 
that  both  are  loth  to  mention.  It  was  a  splendid  spring 
morning,  and  one  could  almost  see  the  soft  green  buds  un 
folding,  and  the  tender  grass  springing  beneath  their  feet. 

Mrs.  Grey's  eyes  were  humid,  and  she  seemed  to  look 
at  things  as  if  she  was  never  to  see  them  again — the  trees 
and  plants  and  promised  flowers  that  she  was  never  to  see 
in  bloom.  They  were  about  to  return  to  the  house — 
neither  of  them  having  the  courage  to  speak  of  the  matter 
which  was  uppermost  in  their  thoughts.  The  noise  of 
wheels  announced  that  Milton  and  Harold  had  returned, 
and  they  had  not  reached  the  house  before  the  young  men 
had  seen  them.  Another  moment  and  Milton  was  saying: 
"  Mrs.  Grey,  1  believe  you  have  not  met  Dr.  Hereford." 

It  was  well  for  Mrs.  Grey  that  neither  Milton  nor  Flor 
ence  could  see  her  face  just  then,  and  Harold  looked  for  a 
moment  as  if  he  had  seen  a  ghost.  Mrs.  Grey  looked  at 
him  with  tightly-closed  lips,  and  he  seemed  to  understand 
that  she  was  imploring  silence.  Then  Harold  tried  to  say 


72  MARiMADUKE    DENVER. 

something  pleasant,  and  they  both  regained  composure 
without  being  noticed.  In  a  little  while  they  all  returned 
to  the  house.  They  made  a  pretense  of  playing  and  sing 
ing  a  little,  but  there  seemed  to  be  a  weight  upon  everyone's 
spirits,  and  they  soon  gave  it  up. 

Mrs.  Grey  escaped  to  her  room  before  the  lights  were 
brought,  and  did  not  join  them  at  supper.  This  woman's 
misery  had  now  reached  its  zenith.  An  hour  later  she  lay 
prone  upon  the  floor  of  her  room,  despairing  and  defeated. 

From  her  window  she  saw  Dr.  Hereford  in  the  garden, 
next  morning,  and  went  quietly  out  there  and  joined  him. 

He  came  quickly  towards  her,  noting  the  terrible  change 
in  her  face  since  yesterday.  When  they  had  walked  far 
enough  from  the  house,  she  turned  a  beseeching  face  to 
him,  and  said  hurriedly,  "  You  will  not  tell  them?  You 
will  have  pity  on  me,  will  you  not?  I  am  going  away,  and 
they  will  never  see  me  again.  I  should  have  gone  long 
before  now,  but  it  is  so  hard.  I  have  been  almost  happy 
here.  But  I  am  going  now,  only  spare  me,"  she  continued 
piteously,  "and  they  shall  never  hear  of  me  again." 

"Yes,  Miriam  Walton,"  he  said  gently,  "  you  will  have 
to  go  away,  and  at  once.  If  Milton  had  not—  "  Here  she 
laid  a  hand  upon  his  arm,  saying,  "  Florence  has  told  you 
that  ? 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  "she  has  told  me.  Only  for 
that— 

"  Yes,"  she  interrupted,  "only  for  Hiat" 

"  I  have  tried  to  find  you,"  he  resumed,  after  a  painful 
pause,  "but  never  thought  of  finding  you  here.  That 
name,"  he  added,  hesitatingly — "Yes,"  she  replied,  "my 
mother's.  I  thought  it  best." 

"  I  am  very  sorry  for  you,"  he  said,  "  but  you  know  there 
no  alternative.  You  must  go  at  once,  and  never  let  them 
know  where  you  are." 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


"Yes,"  she  said,  more  as  if  following  out  a  train  of 
thought,  than  in  reply  to  him,  "I  must  go  away,  and 
never  let  them  know  where  I  am.  Is — is  there  no  hope  for 
me  ?"  she  asked,  weakly. 

"Oh,  yes — certainly,"  he  replied,  hastily,  "but  it  will 
take  time — perhaps  years.  I  will  do  all  that  I  can  for  you, 
if  you  will  let  me  know  where  to  find  you." 

"You  are  very  good,  Dr.  Hereford,"  she  replied;  "and 
you  promise  not  to  tell  them?  Oh,  it  would  be  dreadful," 
she  continued,  clasping  her  hands  together,  "to  let  them 
know  that  all  this  time  they  have  had  such  a  thing  as  I  am 
amongst  them." 

"They  shall  never  know,  Mrs.  Walton,"  he  said  kindly, 
' '  and  if  you  wish  to  go  to-morrow,  I  will  take  Milton  away 
for  the  day.  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  better  so?" 

She  answered  mechanically,  "Yes,  it  would  be  better  so; 
take  him  away." 

At  this  moment  they  saw  Milton  coming  towards  them, 
laughing  and  saying,  "  that  he  was  getting  abominably 
jealous;  another  instance  of  the  'early  bird,'"  he  added; 
but  his  face  fell  when  he  saw  the  misery  in  Mrs.  Grey's, 
and  the  grave  expression  upon  Harold's. 

"  Hereford,"  he  said,  trying  to  look  cheerful,  "Florence 
wants  the  assistance  you  promised  her  last  night,  in  the 
new-fangled  creation  of  coffee — she  awaits  your  highness  in 
the  kitchen." 

"All  right,"  Harold  replied,  "  make  Mrs.  Grey  con 
tinue  her  walk,  she  has  her  headache  still,"  and  he  left 
them. 

When  he  had  gone,  Milton  looked  at  her  long  and 
searchingly.  "  You  are  ill,  my  darling,"  he  said. 

"Only  a  headache,"  she  answered;  "it  is  getting  better." 

"What  has  Dr.  Hereford  been  saying  to  you,  and  why 


74  MAKMADIKK     DKNVKR. 

did  you  both  look  so  grave  this  morning  ?  You  seem 
like  old  friends,  too,"  he  added,  with  a  little  touch  of 
resentment  in  his  voice. 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  evasively,  "I  knew  him  many 
years  ago;  but  you  have  no  right  to  be  jealous,"  she  added, 
trying  to  turn  the  conversation  into  a  cheerful  channel, 
"  as  long  as  Florence  is  not." 

"  Oh,  that  shows  that  Florence  is  not  as  much  in  love 
as  I  am,"  he  said;  "  if  she  were,  she  would  not  have  been 
so  magnanimous  about  lending  her  lover  to  you  this  morn 
ing." 

"It  shows  that  she  has  good  sense,  not  to  be  jealous  of  an 
old  woman  like  me,"  she  answered  with  a  faint  smile. 

She  was  making  a  supreme  effort  to  appear  cheerful. 
It  was  an  Herculean  task,  when  she  felt  like  one  who  was 
standing  upon  the  verge  of  her  grave,  looking  death  in  the 
face,  and  actually  feeling  its  cold  current  in  her  veins; 
even  with  all  her  youth  and  beauty,  with  a  man  close  to 
her  for  whom  her  heart  was  full  of  love,  who  might  bring 
sunshine  and  happiness  into  her  darkened  life,  could  she 
but  dare — but  the  hideous  spectre  that  followed  her  had 
said  no,  and  she  must  per  force  obey  it. 

Kataline  came  to  announce  breakfast,  and  they  returned 
to  the  house  with  her. 

Harold  took  Milton  away  to  a  distant  farm  next  day,  to 
visit  some  old  friends  of  his,  and  Mrs.  Grey  was  thus  given 
the  opportunity  which  she  desired.  Florence  and  she  had 
agreed  that  it  was  better  not  to  let  Milton  know  of  her 
departure.  Florence  could  tell  him  that  she  had  been 
sent  for  hurriedly,  and  that  she  had  promised  to  write  to 
him. 

Florence  was  grieved,  and  her  father,  who  little  sus 
pected  the  under-current  of  things,  was  satisfied  only 


MAKMADUKE    DENVER.  75 

when  she  had  promised  to  come  back  again.  She  had  be 
come  closely  interwoven  in  their  affections  and  they  found 
it  difficult  to  part.  The  two  women  had  agreed  that  it  was 
better,  and  Florence  had  a  secret  hope  that  Milton  would 
return  to  college  when  she  was  gone. 

Milton  was  terribly  disappointed  when  he  came  home 
in  the  evening  and  found  that  Mrs.  Grey  had  gone.  He 
waited  anxiously  for  the  promised  letter  but  it  did  not 
come,  and  then,  in  spite  of  all  remonstrances,  he  started 
in  search  of  her,  and  they  saw  nothing  of  him  for  a  week. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  he  came  back,  appearing  like  a 
ghost  at  Harold's  door  one  night,  as  he  was  about  to  retire 
to  bed. 

Harold  asked  him  kindly  if  he  had  seen  Mrs.  Grey. 
He  had  flung  himself  into  a  chair  and  answered  with  a 
sullen  '  'No  !  "  After  that  he  remained  silent  for  a  long  time 
with  his  head  bowed  upon  his  hands — a  thousand  improb 
able  fancies  were  rushing  through  his  brain.  What  was 
the  matter? — had  she  hidden  from  him  that  one  short  week 
had  seemed  to  him  like  an  eternity  ?  She  might  be  sick, 
perhaps  dying;  and  now,  also,  the  memory  came  back  to  him 
of  the  trouble  he  had  seen  in  her  face  the  morning  he  had 
found  her  walking  with  Harold  in  the  garden,  and  out  of 
this  grew  a  suspicion  that  Harold  had  something  to  do 
with  her  going  away,  and  now  he  flamed  up  angrily  and 
said:  "  I  think  you  know  something  about  her,  Hereford; 
tell  me  what  you  know." 

Harold  was  very  sorry  for  his  friend,  but  hardly  knew 
what  to  say;  in  fact  there  was  but  very  little  that  he  could  say 
under  the  circumstances.  He  did  not  expect  this  question 
and  he  hesitated  before  answering  it,  which  made  the 
other  still  more  suspicious. 

"  Yes,  you  know  where  she  is,"  he  added,  "and  you 
are  hiding  it  from  me." 


76  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

Harold  had  no  idea  that  Milton's  feeling  for  Mrs.  Grey 
had  been  anything  more  than  a  mere  fancy  that  would  die 
out  when  she  had  gone  away.  He  would  rather  not  have  told 
him  what  he  knew  of  her,  and  besides  he  felt  bound  to 
keep,  in  a  measure,  his  promise  to  her.  To  guard  against 
the  possibility  of  her  return  to  the  farm  he  had  been 
obliged  to  give  Florence  some  reason,  and  he  had  told  her 
simply  that  Mrs.  Grey  was  not  a  fit  person  to  live  among 
them,  and  she  did  not  question  him  further.  But  here  was 
something  that  he  had  not  calculated  upon — the  young 
man  before  him  was  in  a  desperate  mood  and  must  be 
answered.  He  saw  also  now  that  any  attempt  at  con 
cealment  Mould  only  make  matters  worse;  it  must  be  told 
to  him,  he  thought,  and  he  will  then  become  disenchanted 
with  his  unhappy  idol. 

"  Milton,"  he  said,  in  a  very  gentle  voice,  "  Mrs.  Grey 
was  not  a  fit  person  to  live  in  this  house." 

This  was  like  putting  a  match  to  a  smouldering  fire. 
Milton  was  aflame  instantly  and  before  Harold  knew  what 
he  was  about  he  had  struck  at  him  with  his  clenched  hand. 

"It  is  a  lie,"  he  shouted,  "an  infamous  lie,  and  you 
have  a  purpose  in  telling  it;  you  drove  her  away  and  you 
will  find  her  by  - 

"  Come  out  of  here,  Milton,"  begged  Harold.  "  Come 
out  where  Florence  will  not  hear  us,  and  I  will  tell  you  all 
I  know  of  this."  He  put  on  his  slippers,  and  Milton 
went  out  before  him  without  a  word. 

"Now,  sir,"  queried  Milton,  when  they  had  reached 
the  garden,  "  tell  me  quick,  and  no  more  of  your  con 
founded  lies — tell  me  where  she  is." 

Harold  kept  his  temper,  and  still  spoke  in  the  same 
even  tone:  "Mrs.  Grey  is  a  dangerous  lunatic,  and  has 
been  under  my  care  for  a  year." 


MARMADUKE     DENVER.  77 

But  he  found  that  he  was  talking  to  a  man  who  was 
determined  not  to  believe  him;  his  great  love  for  this 
woman  had  blinded  him  to  all  reason. 

"You  are  a  liar  and  a  coward,  Harold  Hereford,  and 
you  are  in  love  with  her  yourself  .  You  know  where  she  is, 
and  if  you  do  not  tell  me,  I  will  kill  you." 

It  made  no  matter  now  that  those  two  had  been  children 
together,  had  been  companions  at  school,  and  as  men, 
had  been  the  warmest  friends.  Love  and  friendship  were 
swept  entirely  away  by  the  demons  of  anger  and  jealousy. 

Harold,  who  was  the  coolest  and  most  forbearing,  saw 
now  that  there  was  little  use  in  arguing  the  matter  any 
further,  anything  more  that  he  could  say — and  there  was 
worse  still  to  be  told — would  not  help  matters  any,  so  he 
said  as  quietly  as  he  could,  "  I  have  nothing  more  to  say, 
Milton;  I  have  told  you  the  truth,  and  you  are  determined 
not  to  believe  me." 

He  did  not  want  to  quarrel  with  his  old  friend  and  school 
fellow,  he  had  taken  no  notice  of  the  unjust  names  that  he 
had  applied  to  him,  his  better  judgment  telling  him  that  it 
would  be  best  to  seemingly  submit  to  anything  that  Milton, 
in  his  present  mood,  would  say.  "You  have  wronged  me," 
he  continued,  "but  you  will  find  out  that  I  am  not  deceiv 
ing  you." 

But  the  other  was  getting  more  exasperated  by  the 
coolness  which  Harold  showed,  and  burst  in  with,  "  I 
don't  believe  a  word  you  say,  and  if  you  are  not  a  worse 
coward  than  I  take  you  for  you  will  meet  me  in  the  morning.''1 

"Very  well,"  Harold  replied  in  the  same  even  voice, 
"  any  place  you  wish." 

"The  Hill  field  will  do,"  answered  Milton  sullenly, 
"  what  have  you?" 

"Colt's." 


78  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

"All  right,"  answered  Milton,  "I'll  find  one.  Five 
o'clock,"  he  called  back,  as  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  disap 
peared  in  the  darkness. 

Harold  bitterly  regretted  the  turn  that  affairs  had  taken, 
and  was  sorry  that  he  had  not  taken  Florence  into 
his  confidence,  and  told  her  the  truth  concerning 
Mrs.  Grey.  Milton  might  have  believed  her,  but 
he  certainly  would  believe  neither  of  them  now.  He 
went  to  his  room  and  arranged  his  affairs  as  one  might 
who  was  certain  of  death  in  the  morning.  He  cared  little 
for  his  own  life,  and  the  greatest  regret  he  would  have  in 
dying  was  for  the  gentle  girl,  who  was  to  have  been  his 
wife  in  a  few  months.  It  was  hard  to  die  because  of  this, 
and  he  knew  that  in  his  present  temper,  Milton  would  try 
to  kill  him,  and  he  had  resolved  that  he  would  not  touch  a 
hair  of  Milton's  head. 

He  was  a  brave  man  and  was  capable  of  making  a  gener 
ous  sacrifice,  and  he  weakened  only  when  he  remembered 
that  he  could  not  even  say  farewell  to  the  girl  whom  he  had 
loved  all  his  life;  to  hold  her  in  his  arms  and  kiss  her  for 
the  last  time  would  make  death  less  bitter.  He  even 
thought  of  calling  her  and  making  some  excuse  for  having  to 
leave  unexpectedly,  but  he  dared  not  trust  himself, 
there  would  surely  be  something  in  his  last  despairing  em 
brace  that  might  arouse  her  suspicions.  No,  he  must  deny 
himself  even  this. 

He  woulfl  be  obliged  to  go  to  a  distant  farm  to  procure 
a  young  friend  to  act  as  second, and  before  he  started  he  went 
softly  around  to  Florence's  window  and  stood  before  it  fora 
minute.  During  that  space  of  time  he  was  an  abject  coward. 
It  was  the  most  supreme  moment  in  his  life,  and  the  weak 
est.  He  felt,  while  standing  there,  that  nothing  on  earth 
could  make  him  go,  but  he  recalled  himself  by  a 


MARMADUKE     DENVER.  79 

desperate  effort  and  turned  sharply  away,  hurrying  from 
the  place;  had  he  stayed  there  a  moment  longer  his  heart 
would  have  broken,  and  Milton  would  have  had  a  blood 
less  satisfaction. 

He  arrived  with  his  friend  at  the  "  Hiil  field  "  while  it 
was  yet  almost  dark,  and  found  Milton  and  his  friend  waiting 
for  them.  The  seconds,  who  were  old  friends,  shook  hands 
sadly  enough.  Milton  handed  a  case  containing  a  pair  of 
bright,  new  revolvers  to  Harold,  one  of  which  he  took 
and  silently  returned  the  other. 

The  "  Hill  field  "  was  about  four  miles  from  the  house 
and  was  quite  secluded,bordered  almost  entirely  around  with 
tall  trees.  The  shadows  in  the  early  morning  were  gigantic 
and  reached  far  into  the  middle  of  the  field — this  morning 
they  looked  ominous  and  ghostly.  There  was  promise  of 
a  beautiful  day  for  the  rest  of  the  living  world.  The  deli 
cate  streaks  of  crimson  and  cream  had  begun  to  appear  in  the 
east,  and  there  was  just  light  enough  to  show  the  faint  fairy- 
like  glimmering  of  hoar  frost  upon  the  tender  young  grass. 
The  widening,  glowing  streaks  of  light  shooting  upwards 
from  their  gorgeous  dawn-bed  in  the  east,  promised  a 
gracious  and  peaceful  spring  day. 

The  few  stars  that  still  shone  palely  in  the  east  seemed 
to  twinkle  a  farewell  and  a  welcome,  at  the  same  time,  to 
the  coming  god  of  day,  but  these  harbingers  of  beauty,  and 
peace,  and  harmony  formed  a  strange  and  incongruous 
frame  to  the  ghastly  picture  beneath. 

"Suit  yourself  about  the  distance,  as  near  as  you 
please,"  Milton  had  said.  Before  Harold  allowed  himself 
to  be  placed  he  walked  up  to  Milton  and  said,  "Take  my 
hand  for  Florence's  sake,  it  is  the  last  time,  and  then  you 
may  kill  me  as  soon  as  you  please." 

"  No,"  replied  Milton,    savagely,  "I  would  not  touch 


8o  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

you;  don't  mention  her  name."  That  was  all,  and  in 
half  a  minute  more  they  had  faced  each  other,  and 
Milton's  pistol  rang  out  upon  the  air  first. 

Harold  felt  that  he  had  been  hit  in  the  shoulder  but  he 
did  not  fire.  He  could  easily  have  killed  his  man  now,  but 
instead,  he  flung  his  pistol  away  as  far  as  he  could,  and  kept 
advancing  towards  Milton. 

"  Why  don't  you  fire  ?"  cried  the  other,  angrily.  "I 
want  no  favors  from  you,"  and  he  backed  away  from  him 
doggedly. 

"I  did  not  come  here  to  kill  you,  Milton.  You  can 
fire  again  and  finish  your  work;  then,  perhaps,  you  will 
believe  that  I  have  told  you  the  truth." 

The  blood  was  now  running  in  a  thick  stream  down  his 
arm,  and  his  shirt-sleeve,  soaked  with  it,  was  clinging  to 
his  wrist. 

Milton  had  not  been  aware  that  he  was  wounded  until 
now,  and  the  sight  of  the  blood  seemed  to  recall  him  to  a 
more  rational  state  of  mind.  A  dawning  sense  of  his  blind 
injustice  and  brutality  towards  his  old  friend,  brought  a 
flush  of  remorse  and  shame  to  his  face. 

"  Hereford,  -  "  he  began,  but  by  this  time  Harold  had 
become  so  weak  that  he  was  about  to  fall  forward  had  not 
the  young  men  grasped  him,  each  by  the  arm,  and  laid 
him  gently  on  the  ground. 

Milton's  anger-wrought  feelings  had  now  changed  to 
remorseful  horror,  as  the  conviction  that  he  had  killed  his 
old  friend  and  school-fellow  came  fully  upon  him,  and  he 
felt  that  he  was  a  murderer. 

They  stanched  the  bleeding  as  well  as  they  could,  and 
lifted  him  into  the  carriage,  which  Milton  had  ordered, 
and  which  had  been  waiting  for  the  grim  possibility  of  con 
veying  one  or  the  other  of  them  from  the  field. 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  8 I 

They  drove  quickly  to  the  Columbia  Hotel  in  R n, 

and  the  doctors  pronounced  the  wound   "not  dangerous." 

When  Harold  recovered  consciousness,  his  first  words 
to  Milton  were,  "  Go  home  quickly,  and  tell  Florence 
that  I  had  been  summoned  late  last  night  to  see  a  patient 
who  was  in  danger.  Lose  no  time,  Milton,"  he  said 
anxiously,  "I  am  all  right,  old  fellow;  there,  take  my  hand." 

Milton  wrung  it  in  shame  and  silence,  and  then  left  him 
to  the  care  of  the  doctors.  When  he  arrived  at  the  farm, 
he  found  Florence  and  his  father  in  a  state  of  painful 
anxiety  concerning  their  absence.  He  had  accompanied 
Harold,  he  said,  and  they  had  thought  it  best  not  to  awaken 
any  one,  hoping  to  be  back  before  morning.  "Harold," 
he  said,  "might  be  delayed  there  a  few  days,  the  case 
being  more  serious  than  they  had  expected." 

A  letter  had  come  for  Harold  that  morning  marked,  "in 
haste,"  and  Milton  found  it  an  excellent  excuse  for  return 
ing  to  R n  at  once.  He  found  Harold  very  much 

improved  and  in  great  spirits.  He  tried  to  make  light  of 
the  whole  thing,  and  persisted  in  laughing  at  Milton's  very 
lugubrious  countenance,  and  asserting  that  he  was  furiously 
hungry. 

Milton  was  thereupon  dispatched  in  search  of  some 
provender,  and  while  he  was  gone  Harold  took  up  the 
letter,  saying,  as  he  looked  at  the  envelope,  "  I  wonder 
what  this  is!"  It  was  a  woman's  hand,  and  strange  to 
him.  He  tore  it  open.  It  ran:  * 

"  Come,  all  of  you.  Milton  and  Florence  come  quickly 
in  pity,  I  am  dying.  The  stage  will  bring  you  in  an  hour 
to  '  Harshaw's  ranch.' 

MADELINE  GREY." 

"Doctor,"  he  said,  turning  to  Dr.  Hale,  "can  you  fix 
me  up  for  an  hour's  journey  ? " 

6 


82  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

"It  would  not  be  safe,"  he  replied,  "there  is  every 
danger  of  inflammation.  I  don't  like — 

"But  I  must  go/'  he  persisted — "there  is  no  alterna 
tive — and  at  once." 

When  Milton  returned  he  was  astonished  to  find  Harold 
out  of  bed  trying  to  dress  himself,  and  arguing  crossly  with 
the  doctors. 

"Milton,"  he  said,  "get  a  mouthful  of  something  as 
quickly  as  you  can.  I  want  you  to  do  me  another  favor — 
I  won't  tell  you  until  you  have  eaten  something." 

Milton,  to  please  him,  turned  to  the  table  which  a 
waiter  had  by  this  time  fixed  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
and  emptied  a  glass  of  sherry.  "Now,"  he  said,  "your 
commands,  my  lord." 

"  Get  a  carriage,  quick,  Milton,  and  go  back  for  Florence; 
we  have  found  Mrs.  Grey.  Take  that  with  you,"  he 
added,  putting  the  letter  into  his  hand.  "Don't  lose  a 
moment." 

Milton  glanced  at  the  note  and  saw  all  as  if  it  had  been 
but  one  word,  and  rushed  from  the  room. 

Dr.  Hale,  to  whom  Harold  had  confided  the  matter, 
agreed  to  accompany,  them,  and  Milton  having  arrived  in 
a  very  short  space  of  time  they  were  all  soon  upon  the 
journey  to  "  Harshaw  ranch." 

They  found  Madeline  Grey  in  the  secluded  farm-house, 
where  she  had  hidden  herself  from  the  world  for  the  last 
time.  The  stricken  mother,  a  veritable  ghost  herself,  was 
hovering  around  the  death-bed  of  her  only  child,  and 
came  out  to  the  door  to  meet  them. 

' '  Could  they  see  her  now  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  could  come  in  at  once;  she  had  been 
waiting  and  could  not  die  until  she  had  seen  them." 

Florence  was  the  first  to  enter  the  sick-room  and  the 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  83 

pitiable,  wan  face  brightened  wonderfully  when  she  saw 
her.  Then  Harold  came,  but  her  eyes  did  not  rest  upon 
him,  but  looked  past  him  into  the  hallway.  She  could 
see  Milton  away  out  there,  and  could  read  the  agony  upon 
his  face.  He  was  coming  in,  and  she  held  her  arms  out 
to  him,  her  eyes  full  of  love  and  pity. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  come  between  us  now,  my  darling," 
she  murmured,  as  he  bent  over  her.  "Oh,  why  did  you 
go  away  from  me!"  was  all  that  he  could  say.  "  You  shall 
not  die;  you  shall  come  home  with  us  now." 

The  dying  woman  smiled  sadly  into  his  eyes.  "No," 
she  said,  "  but  you  will  stay  with  me  to  the  last.  My  life 
will  be  short  now,  but  it  will  be  very  happy,  because  you 
are  here  with  me."  He  had  raised  her  up  and  was  hold 
ing  her  in  his  arms.  The  end  was,  indeed,  very  near,  but 
he  would  not  believe  it,  she  looked  so  radiantly  happy. 

"I  have  had  such  a  troubled  life,"  she  said,  "  but  it  is 
gone  now  forever,  and  I  am  oh,  so  happy,  and  you  will 
be  glad,"  she  said  softly,  stroking  his  hair,  "  because  I  died 
so  happily — but  tell  me, "she  added,  imploringly,  "that 
you  have  not  been  angry  with  Dr.  Hereford.  I  dreamed 
last  night  that  there  was  some — some  trouble—  Here  she 
glanced  from  one  to  the  other  with  the  keen  perception  of 
the  dying,  and  guessed  what  they  would  have  given  worlds 
to  hide. 

"Come  here,  Florence,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  that  was 
now  wonderfully  strong  and  clear,  "and  you,  Dr.  Here 
ford — I  have  not  strength  to  tell  them.  I  want  you  to 
explain — to — to — tell  them  what  /have  been — what  I  am. 
You  will  not  ?"  she  said,  seeing  his  head  droop,  "  then 
I  will  have  to  do  it,  but,  oh,"  she  added  shuddering,  "it 
is  hard  to  tell.  Wait  until  I  am  dead,  Dr.  Hereford,  and 
then  it  will  be — but  no,"  she  resumed  in  a  calmer  voice, 


84  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


"it  is  better  that  /should  tell  it.  Florence,  Milton,  I  have 
been  an  unhappy  lunatic  for  more  than  five  years.  It  was 
inherited  from  my  poor  father,  and  I  was  not  aware  that  / 
had  the  terrible  malady,  until  after  my  marriage,  when  my 
first  child  was  born.  When  it  was  a  year  old,"  here  a 
terrible  spasm  of  pain  crossed  her  face,  <(  I  destroyed  it,  and 
— and  a  few  months  afterwards,"  here  she  looked  appeal- 
ingly  at  Dr.  Hereford,  but  he  only  said,  "There  is  nothing 
more  to  tell,  Mrs.  Grey,  nothing  more."  "Oh,  yes,"  she 
answered,  "this — this,  that  I  destroyed  my  husband  also." 

"  My  poor  darling,"  said  Milton,  "why  speak  of  these 
things?  Your  cure  is  almost  complete  now.  Dr.  Hereford," 
he  added,  looking  appealingly  to  him,  "says,  that  it  has 
nearly  died  out — and " 

'*  Yes,  my  poor  love,"  she  interrupted,  "  I  am  all 
right  until  I  love — that  is  my  madness.  I  want  to  kill  the 
beings  that  I  love  most.  Had  I  never  met  you — "  here 
her  arms  closed  around  Milton's  neck.  The  poor,  over 
strained  heart  drank  in  one  last,  long  draught  of  happiness, 
and  then — must  have  broken.  When  Milton  raised  his 
head  again,  there  was  a  sweet  smile  upon  her  dead  lips. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

A  year  had  passed  away.  Milton  had  gone  back  to 
college,  and  was  about  to  fulfill  the  dearest  wish  of 
Florence's  heart  by  preparing  for  his  ordination. 

It  was  within  three  months  of  Florence's  wedding,  and 
the  old  farm-house  was  gaily  alive  with  preparations. 
Katalme  was  masquerading  in  Florence's  bridal  dress  and 
sailed  demurely  up  to  her  father,  who  had  grown  very  gray 
of  late,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  kissed  the  mock 
bride,  and  then  she  was  captured  by  Florence  just  in  time 
to  save  the  magnificent  train  from  being  tampered  with  by 
an  irrepressible  cat. 

There  was  only  one  shadow  upon  Florence's  happiness 
lately — it  was  that  there  was  no  letter  from  Duke.  They  had 
heard  of  his  career  from  the  papers — a  brilliant  one — -and 
of  the  honors  which  would  have  been  heaped  upon  him, 
had  he  cared  for  them. 

They  were  proud  of  his  deeds,  and  did  not  know  of  the 
despairing  recklessness  which  had  given  birth  to  them. 

The  war  of  1870-71  was  over,  and  the  sun  shone  as 
brightly  on  the  blood-stained  fields  of  France,  as  if  it  had 
never  happened. 

Duke  and  his  friend  were  back  again  in  Paris,  beaten, 
tear-stained,  but  still  living — Paris,  in  which  the  con 
querors  were  still  revelling  over  their  victory. 

The  excitement  of  war  had  been  a  sort  of  buoy  that  held 
Duke  from  sinking  in  the  ocean  of  his  sorrow,  but  now 
that  it  was  over  the  old  vacuum  in  his  heart  made  itself 
felt  again,  and  he  could  almost  have  wished  that  it  had 
lasted  longer,  for  even  that  which  had  brought  sorrow  and 


86  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

death  to  many,  had  brought  at  least  oblivion,  to  him. 
Paris  now  indeed  was  like  a  huge  sepulchre,  it  was  the 
grave  of  his  happiness. 

In  his  grief  for  his  country's  defeat,  Pierre  Lacroix  had 
ignored  an  ugly  sword  cut  upon  his  arm,  and  his  great, 
loving  heart  and  brain  were  already"  planning  a  new  ruse 
whereby  he  would  courageously  "take  the  bull  by  the 
horns,"  and  strangle  this  beast  of  melancholy,  which  had 
so  fatal  a  hold  upon  his  blithe  young  friend,  and ,  when 
things  looked  the  most  hopeless  to  the  vivacious  young 
Frenchman,  he  was  wont  to  infuse  a  dash  of  desperation 
into  his  plans,  and  could  thereby  actually  accomplish 
seemingly  impossible  things. 

''What  are  you  going  to  do,  Pierre?"  said  Duke,  a  few 
days  after  they  had  arrived  in  Paris.  "What  are  your 
plans  de  campagne  now?" 

This  was  exactly  the  opening  Pierre  had  wished  for,  and 
he  replied  briskly,  "  You  mean,  what  are  we  going  to  do, 
man  comrade.  Remember  that  we  are  artist  brothers,  sol 
dier  brothers,  brothers  in  misfortune,  brothers  in  everything. 
I  refuse  to  be  separated  from  you.  I  cannot  work  without 
you.  You  have  become,  in  fact,  my  necessary  sail — devil, 
if  you  like.  I  cannot  live  without  you,  and  shall  not  leave 
you  unless  you  kick  me  out;  and  you  will  have  to  kick  me 
before  I  go." 

Duke  could  not  help  laughing.  It  was  all  said  in  the 
Frenchman's  own  serio-comic  style,  but  there  was  an  un 
mistakable  chord  of  seriousness  ringing  in  every  word. 

"  Very  well,  Pierre,"  said  Duke,  "  but  I  shall  be  sorry 
to  burden  your  life  with  such  gruesome  companionship  as 
mine  is  sure  to  be,  but  you  won't  be  able  to  endure  it  very 
long,  and  then  you  are  at  liberty  to  kick  me  out." 

"  Laboremus"  said  Pierre,  meditatively,  as  if  he  had  not 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  87 

noticed  Duke's  reply,  "  that  is  the  watchword  now.  Mon 
Dieu!"  he  murmured  still  to  himself.  "  We  must  work. 
We  are  homeless  beggars,  beaten  soldiers.  We  are  nothing. 
Let  us  be  something.  We  are  nobodies,  and  have  no  right 
even  to  growl.  Let  us  be  something,  first,  and  then  growl 
because  we  are  not  greater." 

Duke  laughed  until  his  heart  really  felt  lighter,  and  they 
did  not  go  to  bed  that  night  until  he  had  succeeded  in 
making  Duke  take  an  interest  in  the  earnest  work  which 
they  were  about  to  commence  at  once. 

"  Work  is  the  thing  for  him — the  very  best  medicine," 
thought  Pierre,  "  and  I  will  keep  him  hard  at  it;  and  my 
name  is  not  Lacroix  if  I  give  him  time  to  think." 

Pierre  had  also  cautiously  and  cunningly  instituted  a 
short  disquisition  now  and  then  upon  the  subject  of  melan 
choly,  adroitly  substituting  Veronica  Venella  as  an  example. 
Only  a  loving  heart  could  conceive  the  ruse. 

Duke  had  not  yet  visited  Pere-la-Chaise.  In  fact,  he 
could  not  escape  long  enough  from  Pierre  to  go  there 
alone,  Pierre  having  magnanimously  promised  to  accom 
pany  him  "when  he  could  spare  time,"  and  resolutely 
ignored  the  fact  that  Duke  would  have  preferred  to  go 
alone.  In  his  inmost  heart  Duke  had  felt  obliged  to 
accuse  him  of  a  slight  want  of  delicacy  in  this  matter,  but 
he  said  nothing.  War  makes  men  regardless  of  the  finer 
feelings,  and  Pierre,  he  thought,  must  certainly  have  lost 
much  of  the  consideration  which  he  had  had  for  his — 
Duke's — feelings. 

And  strangely,  too,  it  was  not  of  Duke's  grief  that  he 
talked  now,  it  was  of  Veronica's.  He  never  seemed  to 
think  of  Duke's  loss  any  more,  it  was  always  of  Veronica's; 
he  talked  about  it  night  after  night,  depicting  in  sorrowful 
colors  the  loss  of  the  poor  girl's  only  friend  in  the  death  of 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


the  princess.  Now,  indeed,  he  spoke  of  the  princess  only  in 
relation  to  her  lovely  protege.  It  was  no  longerthe  woman 
who  had  died  for  love  of  Duke  Denver,  and  there  was 
nothing  to  be  regretted  now  but  the  heart-breaking  of  the 
tender  girl  who  had  been  loved  and  cared  for  by  her. 

Pierre  could  draw  the  most  pathetic  pictures  of  the 
sorrows  of  the  girl  thus  rudely  severed  from  her  bene 
factress  and  thrown  now,  no  doubt,  among  an  element 
which  must  surely  be  repugnant  to  her  exquisite  feel 
ings.  He  (Pierre)  could  not  bear  to  go  to  Pere- 
la-Chaise  and  find  her;  they  would  be  sure  to  find 
her  there  weeping  the  life  out  of  her  young  heart,  and 
why  should  they,  strong  fellows,  yet  with  plenty  of 
work  in  them,  worry  about  anything.  Should  they  not 
rather  do  something  to  save  this  gentle  child  from  the 
grave  which  her  grief  was  surely  digging  for  her  ?  They 
should  at  least  try.  Poor  Veronica! 

His  plans  were  succeeding  admirably.  By  continually 
striking  upon  the  sad  chord  in  Duke's  heart  he  had 
almost  deadened  it,  and  had  fully  awakened  his  sympathies 
for  Veronica. 

Duke  was  forgetting  his  own  sorrow;  he  would  now, 
indeed,  be  ashamed  to  have  pitted  it  against  that  of  the 
girl  whose  life  must  have  been  a  very  sad  one  since. 

"  It  seems  strange,"  said  Duke,  one  day,  "how  we  had 
almost  forgotten  her." 

"/  never  forgot  her,"  answered  Pierre,  loftily.  "I 
thought  of  her  very  often,  indeed,  and  I  am  anxious  to  see 
her  again,  very  anxious,"  he  continued,  with  a  furtive 
glance  at  Duke. 

The  other  looked  at  him,  wonderingly,  but  said  nothing. 
One  day,  when  he  thought  he  had  escaped  the  lynx  eye  of 
Pierre,  he  went  to  the  cemetery  with  more  of  the  lonely 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  89 

Veronica  in  his  thoughts  than  had  ever  been  there  before. 
He  might  have  gone  to  her  house,  but  a  feeling  that  he 
should  like  to  meet  her  again  at  the  grave  seemed  to 
influence  him.  He  had  been  thinking  about  her  a  good 
deal  lately,  and  Pierre's  eloquent  portrayal  of  her  sorrow 
had  wrought  powerfully  upon  his  kindly  heart,  and  he  felt, 
indeed,  that  he  would  have  been  very  much  disappointed 
if  he  did  not  find  her  in  Pere-la-Chaise  that  day,  and 
the  hope  grew  stronger  until  it  outweighed  the  motives  that 
had  hitherto  drawn  him  there. 

The  evening  shadows  were  dimming  the  dazzling 
whiteness  of  the  marble  in  Pere-la-Chaise.  When  he 
found  himself  again  at  the  cherished  grave  a  great 
wave  of  grief  swept  over  him,  opening  afresh  the  miser 
able  wound  in  his  heart.  A  feeling  that  Veronica 
was  near,  that  she  would  surely  come  to  share  his  grief,  had 
in  it  a  sort  of  balm.  When  he  had  breathed  a  reverent  prayer 
for  the  beloved  dead  he  thought  again  of  the  young  face  which 
he  had  kissed  here  over  the  grave,  and  he  was  glad  that  he 
had  kissed  her,  although  it  had  been  a  somewhat  selfish  act 
on  his  part  then — it  was  as  if  he  would  rob  her  of  the  last 
kiss  which  the  dear  dead  lips  had  left  there,  but  he  was 
glad  now  that  he  had  done  it  and  thought,  too,  that  if 
he  should  ever  kiss  her  again  it  would  be  more  for  Ver 
onica's  sake  than  that  of  the  loved  one  gone. 

It  had  grown  dark,  and  he  had  not  noticed  it.  He  was 
still  standing  there  in  deep  thought,  when  two  women 
approached  the  grave.  He  felt  sure  that  one  of  them  must 
be  Veronica.  Would  she  recognize  him  was  his  first 
thought.  He  knew  that  he  was  very  much  changed.  He 
was  standing  in  the  deepest  shadow,  so  that  they  could 
scarcely  see  him  until  they  had  come  very  close.  Veron 
ica,  for  it  was  she,  was  talking  to  the  older  woman,  who 


90  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

was  evidently  her  mother,  and  her  voice,  he  thought,  had 
sad  notes  in  it  like  the  music  of  an  /Kolian  harp,  and  it 
thrilled  him  as  he  listened. 

Veronica  laid  some  flowers  upon  the  tomb,  and  in 
doing  so,  saw  him,  and  started  back  in  affright,  but  it  was 
only  for  a  second,  and  then  she  went  quickly  around  to 
where  he  stood — even  in  the  dim  light  she  had  recognized 
him — then  she  stopped,  as  if  ashamed  of  her  boldness,  and 
murmured  falteringly: 

"  Monsieur  Denver?" 

They  were  only  a  few  feet  apart  now,  and  he  opened 
his  arms  without  a  word,  but  there  was  a  world  of  love  and 
joy  in  his  eyes,  and  a  prayer  of  deep  thankfulness  in  his 
heart,  as  she  went  straight  into  his  arms,  and  laid  her  face 
against  his  bosom. 

Truly,  across  that  holy  grave  the  unseen  chain  of  love 
had  at  last  linked  those  two  young  hearts  together. 

When  he  had,  as  he  thought,  outwitted  Pierre  that 
day,  and  had  succeeded  on  reaching  the  cemetery  alone, 
that  individual  had  been  perfectly  cognizant  of  his  doings, 
and  when  Duke  was  clearly  out  of  sight,  he  proceeded  to 
indulge  in  a  grin  of  such  diabolical  nature  and  dimensions 
as  would  have  astonished  anyone  who  had  the  luck  to 
witness  it.  His  "  prophetic  powers,"  which  were  coming 
into  play  again,  told  him  that  Veronica  would  be  in  the 
cemetery,  and  that  Duke  would  be  sure  to  meet  her  there. 
Had  Duke  gone  any  place  else  but  there  he  would  have 
been  anxious  and  impatient  for  his  return,  but  he  sat  now 
smoking  contentedly,  seeing  wonderful  pictures  in  the 
smoke-wreaths  in  which  Duke  and  Veronica  were  the 
happy  figures. 

Duke  came  home  late  that  night,  with  a  rather  bashful 
air,  and  a  very  happy  light  in  his  eyes,  upon  seeing  which 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  91 

Pierre  proceeded  to  behave  himself  in  an  atrocious  and 
unaccountable  manner.  First,  he  sent  his  shoe  through 
the  canvas,  upon  which  he  had  worked  industriously  the 
day  before,  upon  a  head  of  Petrarch. 

He  then  put  on  his  boxing  gloves  and  sparred  furiously 
at  Duke,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  noble  art,  until  he, 
Duke,  was  sore  all  over.  When  he  had  tired  of  that,  he 
practiced  the  "William  Tell  trick"  upon  a  valued  bust  of 
Chaucer,  and  was  seemingly  overjoyed  when  he  succeeded 
in  knocking  the  nose  off.  If  it  was  exuberance  of  spirits — 
Duke  thought  it  was  brandy — he  cught  to  have  been  satis 
fied  by  this  time,  but  to  Duke's  alarm,  when  the  landlord 
came  up  to  enquire  what  all  the  noise  was  about,  Pierre 
ordered  a  supper  which  would  have  appalled  a  millionaire — 
ordered  it  with  the  air  of  a  prince — and  concluded  by  mak 
ing  the  landlord,  a  venerable  old  man  of  sixty  years,  stoop, 
while  he  performed  a  complicated  feat  of  leap-frog  over  him. 
After  that,  he  sat  down,  from  sheer  exhaustion,  and  dropped 
into  a  meditative  mood,  which  lasted  until  the  supper  was 
announced,  and  which  he  ate  with  as  much  gusto  as  if  he 
knew  how  it  was  going  to  be  paid  for. 

"  Eat,  my  friend,"  he  said,  waving  his  hand  towards 
Duke.  "  We  are  but  creatures  of  the  moment;  let  us 
enjoy  each  one  as  if  it  were  to  be  the  last.  What  do  we 
know  about  a  future?  Why  worry  about  it  ?  Who  can 
assure  us  of  an  hour's  existence  ?  Then  let  us  get  all  we 
can  out  of  the  present  one.  Fall  to,  man,"  seeing  that 
Duke  was  regarding  "the  lay-out "  with  a  stare  of  dismay. 
"It  is  the  rich,"  he  continued,  "who  should  fast,  the 
gourmand,  the  glutton,  the  gorged.  Why  should  we  not 
feast?  What  is  left  to  us  when  luck  fails  us  ?  An  appetite! 
When  the  fortunes  of  war  go  against  us,  when  love  is 
denied  us,  when  friends  desert  us,  what  stays  with  us?  Oh, 


92  MARMADUKE    DENVER. 

what  indeed,  but  our  faithful  appetites  ?  They  cheer  and 
console  us,  and  lift  us  out  of  the  mire  of  melancholy. 
Here's  to  the  appetite,  Duke,  let  us  respect  it.  Fill  your 
glass,  old  man — more — more — fill  it  to  the  brim.  Now, 
then,  if  we  die  to-morrow,"  he  continued,  laying  down 
his  empty  glass,  "  we  shall  die  like  gentlemen,  and  let  the 
devil  pay  the  piper." 

When  the  table  had  been  cleared  away,  and  they  had 
settled  down  for  a  comfortable  smoke,  the  little  French 
man  grew  very  serious,  and  again  relapsed  into  deep 
thought. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about  now,  Pierre?"  said 
Duke,  "trying  to  sift  some  sense  out  of  all  that  nonsense?" 

"  Yes,  and  no,"  replied  Pierre.  "  I  was  just  wondering 
if  I  could  persuade  some  woman  to  marry  me.  I'm 
getting  old  and  lonely,  mon  comrade"  he  added,  with  a 
sigh,  "  and  am,  in  fact,  tired  of  myself.  Now,  if  I  be 
longed  to  somebody  else — to  some  nice  woman, for  instance, 
I  would  begin  to  set  some  value  upon  myself  again;  in  fact, 
I  would  take  a  little  more  interest  in  the  respectable 
married  Monsieur  Lacroix." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ?"  Duke  asked, 
laughing.  "If  you  cast  me  out  what  will  become  of  me  ?" 

"  Go  and  do  likewise,"  Pierre  replied,  with  a  grin.  "If 
you  don't,  you  are  no  longer  respectable  in  my  eyes.  A 
man  without  a  wife  is  an  incomplete  animal  at  best — an 
incomplete  animal,  and  should  have  no  consideration.  He 
is  a  useless  spoke  in  the  world's  wheel,  a  soulless,  selfish, 
loveless  weight.  Duke,"  he  said,  changing  his  tone  sud 
denly,  "whom  did  you  see  to-day?" 

Duke  blushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair,  but  he  answered 
simply,  "  Veronica." 

"Veronica,"  echoed  Pierre,   "  alive  and  well.     I  was 


MARMADUKE    DENVER.  93 

afraid  something  might  have  happened  to  her,'*  here  two 
great  big  tears  actually  rolled  down  his  face,  "and  we  had 
almost  forgotten  her — beasts."  Duke  could  not  resist  the 
great  womanish  tears  and  they  unlocked  the  secret  which 
he  would  have  hidden  a  little  longer.  "  She  is  alive  and 
well,  Pierre,"  he  said,  his  eyes  shining  with  a  suspicious 
moisture,  "and — and " 

"  And  she  has  consented  to  marry  you,  you  dear  old 
goose,"  Pierre  shouted;  "  you  beloved  old  sneak,  and  you 
are  going  to  desert  me,  you  unfaithful  wretch,  and  I  am 
the  man  with  the  'broken  heart'  now."  He  was  holding 
Duke  around  the  neck  with  a  grip  that  tightened  with  each 
word  and  he  let  go  only  when  Duke  reminded  him  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  die  of  strangulation.  Then  he  released  him 
rather  reluctantly  and  went  to  see  if  there  was  anything 
left  to  drink  to  Veronica's  health  and  then  he  sat  down 
and  vowed  that  he  was  "going  to  be  an  American." 

"  Duke,"  he  said,  quite  seriously,  "don't  all  your  great 
men  begin  by  being  beggars,  or  backwoods  men,  or  some 
thing  of  that  sort  ?  I  want  to  begin  life  all  over  again.  I 
want  to  be  re-born  in  America  and  thereby  become  a  sort 
of  cousin  to  you,  mon  ami."" 

"All  right,  old  man,  you  shall"  replied  Duke,  "  you 
shall  come  over  there  with  me,  and  begin  your  great 
career  as  soon  as  you  please." 

And  it  turned  out  that  there  were  two  weddings  instead 
of  one  at  the  farm,  and  Pierre  and  Veronica's  mother  were 
there,  and  they  go  over  regularly  every  year  and  spend 
three  months  there,  and  William  Denver  is  the  happiest 
old  man  in  the  country  because  his  favorite  boy  has  given 
up  the  "crazy  picture  business,"  and  settled  down  to 
"decent  farm  life,"  and  moreover  he  had  the  sweetest 
little  wife  in  the  world. 


94 


MARMADUKE    DENVER. 


When  Florence  and  her  husband  came  to  visit  them 
they  compared  babies,  which  were  always  ridiculously 
alike  in  looks  and  years,  and  such  occasions  were  gener 
ally  like  Fourth  of  July  celebrations  on  a  small  scale. 

And  there  is  forever  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  the  young 
farmer  and  his  wife,  a  saint,  whose  grave  is  in  Pere-la- 
Chaise,  and  their  memory  of  her  has  become  a  holy  rever 
ence  into  which  grief  and  regret  no  longer  enter. 

The  mother  of  Madeline  Grey  did  not  long  survive  the 
death  of  her  unfortunate  child,  and  William  Denver  pro 
vided  comfortably  for  her  remaining  years. 


Oql 


"Why  Ella,  child,  what  have  you  been  doing  ?"  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Winter,  raising  her  hands  and  eyebrows  in  mild  sur 
prise,  as  a  beautiful  girl  stood  before  her  with  an  armful  of 
flowers.  Great  crimson  roses  mingled  their  dewy  loveli 
ness  with  pure  white  ones,  and  velvet  pansies  lay  with 
their  faces  half  hidden  beneath  a  tangle  of  heliotrope  and 
srnilax. 

"Oh,  these  are  for  Willie,  mamma!"  replied  the  fair 
culprit,  laying  her  beautiful  burden  upon  a  table,  and  she 
picked  out  a  yellow  rosebud,  which  well  deserved  its 
name,  "  Gold  of  Ophir,"  and  pinned  it  in  her  mother's 
bosom — an  act  which  immediately  disarmed  the  old  lady  of 
rising  displeasure,  Ella's  depredations  among  her  beloved 
flowers  being  of  frequent  occurrence. 

Mrs.  Winter  had  been  a  widow  for  many  years,  her 
husband,  a  California  miner,  having,  in  mining  parlance, 
"  passed  in  his  checks,  "leaving  her  in  comfortable  circum 
stances,  and  she  lived  a  secluded  life,  with  her  only 
child,  in  a  pretty  suburb  of  San  Francisco. 

Willie  Gaynor  was  a  distant  cousin,  whom  Ella  had 
never  seen,  but  she  was  almost  in  love  with  a  handsome 
boyish  face,  which  looked  at  her  from  an  old  daguerreotype 
upon  the  mantelpiece,  and  whose  somewhat  saucy  mouth 
she  had  often  furtively  kissed.  His  father  had  written 
that  he  was  coming  to  spend  a  vacation  with  them. 


96  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


"  I  trust,  dear  Margaret,"  ran  the  letter,  "that  he  shall  be 
the  link  which  will  unite  again  the  chain  of  our  long 
severed,  but  never  forgotten  friendship." 

And  now  Ella  was  about  to  behold  her  girlish  ideal, 
whom  her  imagination  had  so  often  pictured! 

He  lived  "  away  up"  in  the  mountains  where  they  dis 
embowelled  the  earth  of  its  golden  treasures,  and  to  Ella's 
romantic  mind  must  belong  to  the  primitive  heroes 
depicted  by  Joaquin  Miller  and  Prentice  Mulford. 

To-day  was  a  very  happy  one  for  Ella.  The  sun  was 
certainly  brighter,  the  flowers  had  a  sweeter  perfume,  and 
seemed  to  have  gained  more  radiant  colors.  They  are 
waiting  fora  letter,  which  would  tell  the  time  of  his  arrival. 
Ella  gazes  expectantly  towards  the  gate,  and  is  at  last 
rewarded  by  the  appearance  of  the  gray-coated  postman, 
whose  homely  face  looks  positively  handsome  to  her 
this  morning.  With  a  dexterous  twist  of  finger  and  thumb, 
"  the  result  of  constant  practice,"  he  sends  a  letter  flying 
up  the  garden  path,  and  as  Ella  runs  lightly  towards  him, 
it  lands  softly  and  significantly  against  her  lips,  and  then 
drops  at  her  feet.  She  picked  it  up  with  a  blush,  which 
put  all  the  pretentious  pink  flowers  in  the  garden  to  shame. 

The  letter  is  for  her  this  time — the  first  she  has  ever 
received  from  her  cousin,  and  her  hands  tremble  as  she 
tears  open  the  envelope.  She  walked  back  through  the 
garden  slowly,  and  Mrs  Winter  coming  to  the  window  is 
just  in  time  to  see  the  joyous,  expectant  look  die  out  of  her 
face,  and  an  expression  of  the  deepest  disappointment 
succeed  the  happy  one  which  brightened  it  a  moment 
ago. 

"  Oh,  mamma,  Willie  says  he  cannot  leave  for  a  month. 
I'm  so  sorry."  There  is  a  sad  cadence  in  her  voice  as 
she  softly  utters  the  word  "sorry,"  which  would  have  told 


ONLY    A    TRAMP.  97 


Mr.  Gaynor  a  good  deal  could  he  have  heard  it.  A  great 
big  sigh  accompanied  her  words,  as  she  looked  regretfully 
at  the  flowers  which  she  had  gathered  especially  for  him, 
and  which  now  seemed  to  droop  their  lovely  heads  in 
unison  with  her  sorrow,  but  young  hearts  are  made  of  very 
elastic  material,  and  blithesome  Ella  was  soon  herself  again. 

I  hope  my  reader  will  not  find  fault  with  my  heroine 
when  I  disclose  the  fact  that  she  never  tried  to  conceal  a 
strong  partiality  for  dogs.  They  were  her  playmates  and 
faithful  protectors  in  childhood  and  all  of  the  dignity  of 
young  ladyhood  lacked  power  to  banish  them  from  her  side 
now.  Great,  shaggy  fellows, with  big,  affectionate  brown  eyes, 
were  her  especial  favorites,  but  every  canine,  from  the  petted 
pug  to  the  slim  and  graceful  greyhound,  had  a  place  in  her 
affections,  but  in  all  her  life  she  never  had  occasion  to  find 
fault  with  any  of  them  until  to-day,  when  her  prime  favor 
ite  covered  her  with  shame  and  humiliation. 

This  is  how  it  happened:  Donning  her  big  sunhat  and 
calling  her  pet,  Nigger,  and  a  small  specimen  named 
Ruby,  she  sallied  forth  for  her  usual  ramble,  with  spirits  as 
light  as  if  the  disappointment  of  the  morning  had  never 
occurred.  All  went  well  until  Nigger  encountered  a 
casual  acquaintance,  in  the  shape  of  a  pugilistic-looking 
black  dog,  who  was  evidently  on  the  "war-path."  He 
sniffed  around  Nigger  for  a  few  moments  and  then  threw 
down  the  glove,  so  to  speak.  Nigger,  to  his  eternal  dis 
grace,  lent  an  unwilling  ear  to  the  agonized  entreaties  of 
his  young  mistress,  wavered  just  a  moment  and  then  "went 
for  his  opponent  with  a  vim  which  promised  to  make 
'  things  lively  '  all  around."  The  "  small  specimen  "  made 
a  few  spasmodic  dashes  toward  the  combatants,  but  deem 
ing  ' '  discretion  the  better  part  of  valor  "  in  this  case,  sat 
down  at  a  safe  distance  and  watched  the  fight  uneasily. 


98  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


Ella  is  in  despair  and  looks  vainly  around  for  help; 
espying  a  stick  she  picks  it  up  and  pokes  aimlessly  at  the 
dogs,  in  a  futile  effort  to  separate  them.  She  has  just 
given  up  all  hope,  when,  to  her  great  relief,  a  man  appears 
upon  the  scene.  He  is  grimy  and  ragged,  but  she  takes 
no  notice  of  it,  but  begs  him,  earnestly,  to  save  her  pet 
from  the  monster  who  is  bent  upon  devouring  him.  An 
amused  smile  flickers  around  the  man's  mouth  for  an 
instant  as  he  looks  at  her,  then  grasping  a  dog  with  each 
hand,  he  flings  one  clear  over  the  fence  and  is  about  to 
fling  the  other  in  an  opposite  direction,  but  Ella  grasps 
him  by  the  coat  sleeve  and  claims  her  dog,  all  dirty  and 
disgraced  as  he  is. 

"I  am  very  grateful,  indeed,"  stammered  Ella,  as  she 
held  out  her  hand  with  some  money  toward  the  stranger,  but 
he  took  no  notice  of  her  action,  and  lifting  his  apology  for 
a  hat,  with  a  bow  which  would  have  done  honor  to  a  Ches 
terfield,  was  soon  out  of  sight. 

That  identical  tramp,  for  such  he  proved  to  be,  called  at 
Mrs.  Winter's  cottage  a  few  days  later,  and  Ella  recognized 
her  casual  acquaintance,  and  in  truth  he  looked  the  typi 
cal  tramp — from  his  shirt-button,  conspicuous  by  its 
absence,  to  his  dusty  shoes. 

Mrs.  Winter's  pet  aversion  was  a  tramp;  the  very  name 
suggested  fire,  and  robbery,  and  murder;  every  rag  and 
tatter  had  a  terror  for  her,  and  when,  perchance,  she  did 
give  employment  to  such  people,  it  was  under  the  pressure 
of  stern  necessity,  and  always  with  fear  and  trepidation. 

An  anxious  and  hurried  consultation  with  Jane  in  the 
kitchen  disclosed  the  fact  that  the  split  kindling  was 
exhausted,  and  upon  the  assurance  of  that  intrepid  person 
that  she  would  "  keep  an  eye  on  him,"  she  was  permitted 
to  lead  him  to  the  wood-pile. 


ONLY    A    TRAMP.  99 


After  sitting  him  down  to  dinner  in  the  kitchen,  Jane, 
acting  upon  pre-arrangement,  took  the  liberty  of  giving  Mrs. 
Winter  "a  wink,"  whereupon  that  wise  and  worthy  woman 
ensconced  herself  behind  a  convenient  ambush,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  study  Mr.  Tramp. 

For  the  first  time  in  her  life  the  good  woman's  opinion 
wavered.  The  hat  which  nearly  concealed  his  face  when 
she  first  saw  him,  was  now  laid  aside,  disclosing  to  view  a 
broad,  white  forehead,  surmounted  by  a  handsome  crop  of 
brown  curls;  his  face  was  not  over  clean,  but  there  was  no 
mistaking  the  beauty  in  every  line  of  it;  a  very  youthful 
face,  with  not  even  the  shadow  of  a  mustache  to  hide  the 
clear-cut,  refined  mouth.  Truly,  she  "  came  and  saw,  and 
was  conquered."  The  kind,  motherly  heart  even  felt  a 
gentle  thrill  of  pity  for  this  poor  boy,  whose  face,  strangely 
enough,  brought  the  memory  of  a  dear  dead  boy  back  to 
her  as  she  gazed. 

"  I  will  find  some  work  for  him,"  she  said  to  herself. 

She  thought  also  of  the  flower  garden,  which  needed 
looking  after,  and  resolved  to  give  him  work  for  a  few 
weeks. 

They  were  soon  busy  among  the  weeds  and  flowers, 
Ella,  and  even  Mrs.  Winter  taking  a  hand.  The  tramp 
proved  himself  a  valuable  acquisition.  He  preserved  a 
stolid  silence  unless  when  spoken  to.  He  never  recalled 
the  incident  of  the  dog-fight,  and  looked  blankly  at  Ella, 
as  if  he  had  never  before  seen  her. 

Ella  thought  there  was  something  interesting  in  this  slen 
der,  brown-eyed  youth,  who  so  badly  played  the  role  of 
tramp. 

Owing  to  her  secluded  life,  Ella  Winter's  ideas  of  men 
and  things  had  been  mostly  gathered  through  the  doubtful 
medium  of  the  modern  novel,  therefore,  she  cannot  be 


100  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


blamed  if  her  romantic  and  highly  imaginative  mind  found 
food  and  ample  exercise  in  the  daily  study  of  this  man, 
who  was  a  perplexing  mixture  of  gentleman  and  vagabond. 
They  actually  found  it  difficult  to  address  him  as  an  infe 
rior,  his  manner  leaving  them  in  doubt  as  to  his  social 
standing  among  them,  and  Mrs.  Winter  had  evidently 
divested  herself  of  all  her  old  prejudice  and  fears  concern 
ing  tramps  generally. 

"What  do  you  think  of  our  gardener  now,  mamma?" 
inquired  Ella  one  morning  over  her  teacup. 

"Oh,  I  think  he's  just  splendid,"  answered  her  mother, 
looking  radiantly  at  Ella  through  her  glasses. 

"What  do  you  think  I  found  him  doing  yesterday  ?" 
went  on  Ella. 

Mrs.  Winter  looked  up  now  and  a  shade  of  alarm  crossed 
her  face.  Was  she  mistaken,  after  all  ?  Was  this  fellow — 
but  her  fears  were  allayed  by  the  smile  upon  Ella's  face. 
"  I  surprised  him  reading  this"  said  Ella,  triumphantly 
holding  up  a  small  edition  of  "  Les  Miserables  "  in  French. 

"Oh,  you  should  see  him  blush,  mamma,  and  I  think  he 
was  angry,  too,  for  when  I  apologized,  and  told  him  to  con 
tinue  reading,  would  you  believe  it,  he  hardly  thanked 
me." 

The  momentary  doubt  which  crossed  Mrs.  Winter's 
mind,  brought  a  little  qualm  of  conscience  with  it.  Did 
she  do  right,  she  questioned  herself,  in  allowing  her  fears 
to  be  allayed  by  the  fair  face  of  the  vagrant,  who  might  be 
a  thief  or  murderer  in  disguise  ? 

The  toast  is  drying  up  and  the  muffins  are  growing  cold, 
but  neither  of  these  ladies  seem  to  have  any  appetite  this 
morning.  Mrs.  Winter's  thoughts  reverted  to  Willie  Gay- 
nor,  and  an  earnest  wish  formed  itself  in  her  mind  that  he 
would  come  very  soon. 


ONLY    A    TRAMP.  IOI 


Ella  is  helping  the  tramp  to  tie  up  some  rose  trees 
to-day,  and  drawing  him  into  conversation,  he  aston 
ishes  her  by  his  knowledge  of  books  and  their  authors. 
His  face  lights  up  with  enthusiasm,  completely  transform 
ing  the  man.  He  speaks  with  rare  judgment,  and  evinces 
undoubted  taste  and  culture,  but  he  soon  checks  himself 
as  if  by  an  effort,  and  assumes  again  his  servile  and  almost 
sullen  manner.  He  is  more  than  ever  an  enigma  to  her. 
A  few  hours  later  he  presented  her  with  an  exquisite  half- 
blown  rose,  and  she  accepted  it  from  this  handsome  tramp 
with  as  much  grace  and  thanks  as  if  it  had  been  given  her 
by  a  prince,  aye,  and  blushed — to  her  chagrin — under  his 
gaze,  as  she  pinned  it  in  her  bosom. 

There  is  not  a  word  spoken  about  Willie  Gaynor  now, 
although  he  is  expected  in  another  week,  and  Ella  wonders 
even  to  herself  why  she  bo  seldom  thinks  of  him.  She  has 
certainly  lost  much  of  the  fervor  with  which  she  regarded 
his  coming  a  month  ago.  She  is  afraid  to  question  her 
heart,  which  could  tell  her  a  strange  story  from  which  she 
would  almost  recoil,  could  it  give  voice  to  the  truth.  For 
all  troubles  Ella  invariably  found  a  panacea  in  a  chase  with 
her  beloved  dogs.  Calling  "  Nigger  and  Ruby,"  she  held 
up  a  dainty  forefinger,  and  then  admonished  them:  "Nig 
ger,  if  you  quarrel  with  any  of  your  relatives  to-day,  you 
shall  never,  never  come  out  with  me  again."  The  dogs 
winked  in  an  apologetic  way,  and  wagged  their  tails  in  a 
manner  suggestive  of  compliance."  Tying  her  ample  sun- 
hat  under  her  chin,  and  putting  tramps,  troubles  and 
cousin  out  of  her  mind,  for  the  time,  she  set  out  for  her 
beloved  chase. 

Meanwhile  Mrs.  Winter  is  holding  an  anxious  and 
confidential  confab  with  Jane  in  the  pantry.  She  ques 
tions  her  closely  concerning  the  movements,  demeanor 


102  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


and  possible  designs  of  the  still-to-be-feared  tramp,  to  all 
of  which  Jane  gives  the  most  favorable  answers,  more 
over,  winding  up  with  an  emphatic  assurance  of  his  being, 
to  her  mind,  "a  perfect  gentleman,  never  asks  a  question, 
and  always,  speaks  to  her  (Jane)  as  if  she  were  a  born 
lady."  The  warmth  and  enthusiasm  of  the  girl's  defense 
showed  plainly  enough  that  he  had  captured  that  side  of  the 
citadel,  but  she  is  still  in  doubt  and  uncertainty,  and  is 
glad  that  the  time  of  Willie  Gaynor's  arrival  is  near  at 
hand. 

Ella  finds  herself  a  long  distance  from  home;  her  nerves 
are  at  their  highest  tension  to-day,  and  excitement  renders 
her  oblivious  of  time.  The  lengthening  shadows  warn  her 
that  it  is  growing  late.  Nigger  and  Ruby  begin  to  look  up 
appealingly  to  their  young  mistress,  who,  as  yet,  shows  no 
sign  of  returning.  She  is  walking  now7  down  a  steep 
and  rugged  decline,  an  old  water-course,  whose  rough 
stones,  and  fragments  of  rock  make  it  extremely  hazardous. 
She  is  thinking  deeply,  and  takes  little  heed  of  her  sur 
roundings.  Stepping  upon  a  stone  which  looks  firmly 
imbedded  in  the  ground,  it  turns  treacherously;  she  bal 
ances  upon  it  for  a  moment,  then  falls  forward  heavily. 
She  attempts  to  rise,  but  to  her  dismay  finds  that  her 
ankle  is  sprained,  and  sinks  down  with  a  cry  of  pain. 
There  was  little  prospect  of  help  in  that  desolate  place.  She 
wondered  despairingly,  what  w^ould  become  of  her.  In  her 
extremity,  she  clung  to  Nigger,  who  whined  piteously  in 
sympathy  with  her.  It  was  quite  dark  now.  Nigger,  real 
izing  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation,  set  up  a  dismal  and 
prolonged  howl,  which  was,  had  he  but  known  it,  the 
most  effectual  mode  of  assistance  he  could  have  rendered, 
for  it  fortunately  reached  the  ear  of  a  solitary  wanderer, 
who  was  about  to  betake  himself  to  his  quarters  for  the 


ONLY    A    TRAMP.  103 


night.  He  stood  still  for  a  moment  and  listened;  again 
the  melancholy  cry  was  wafted  on  the  night  breeze,  this 
time  more  distinctly.  He  set  out  quickly  in  the  direction 
of  the  sound,  and  in  a  short  time  was  beside  our  unlucky 
heroine.  She  looked  up  with  great  tearful  eyes,  full  of 
thankfulness,  to  behold  the  "tramp." 

"Oh!  Fm  so  glad/'  she  began  brokenly,  "I  think  I 
should  have  died  here,  if  you  had  not  come." 

"And  Fm  so  sorry  that  you  have  hurt  yourself,"  he 
answered,  with  tender  compassion  in  his  voice.  Presently 
he  kneels  down,  and  lifts  her  from  her  painful  position. 
There  is  a  softness  in  his  touch,  and  a  womanly  tenderness 
.in  his  movements,  that  fills  her  with  a  sense  of  rest  and 
protection.  She  looked  at  him  wonderingly,  and  can 
scarcely  believe  that  he  is  the  same  person. 

She  is  obliged  to  lean  her  head  against  him,  and  as  it 
was  a  case  of  absolute  necessity,  no  thought  of  compro 
mising  her  dignity  entered  her  head.  Together  they  dis 
cuss  the  best  means  of  getting  home.  She  advises  him  to 
go  to  the  cottage  for  the  basket  carnage,  to  which  he 
agrees  after  some  argument,  but  when  he  is  ready,  she 
positively  refuses  to  be  left  alone,  and  finally  agrees  to  be 
carried  home  in  his  arms. 

If  there  is  any  one  virtue  in  this  mundane  sphere  of  ours 
sufficient  in  itself  to  make  a  saint,  it  is  the  self-abnegation 
of  the  ordinary  young  man,  who  could  bear  such  a  pre 
cious  burden  for  fully  two  miles,  and  not  tighten  his  hold 
just  the  smallest  perceptible  bit.  Whether  Ella  took  this 
fact  into  consideration  or  not,  no  one  can  tell;  but  certain 
it  is,  that  when  he  laid  her  tenderly  and  almost  reverently 
upon  her  mother's  lounge  later  on,  she  thanked  him  with  a 
look  in  her  eyes  that  spoke  as  plainly  as  words,  her  deep 
respect  for  him. 


104  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


Willie  Gaynor  is  coming  to-morrow.  Ella  is  confined 
to  her  bed.  Mrs.  Winter  is  worried  and  anxious.  Jane 
announces  later  on  that  the  "  hired  man  "  has  not  put  in 
an  appearance  to-day,  but  at  the  same  time,  assures  them 
that  everything  is  in  the  "  best  of  order."  Mrs.  Winter 
draws  a  sigh  of  relief,  and  Ella  says  nothing.  She  is  ac 
tually  cross  to-day.  There  are  times  when  even  the  most 
amiable  girls  are  out  of  sorts.  No  one  suggests  a  fresh 
flower,  and  there  seems  but  little  gladness  in  the  house, 
somehow.  Next  day  they  carry  Ella  down  to  the  parlor, 
and  prop  her  around  comfortably  with  pillows.  Her 
golden-brown  hair  is  Iving  loosely,  forming  a  pretty  frame 
work  to  her  face. 

At  five  o'clock  there  is  a  grinding  of  wheels  on  the 
gravel  outside,  and  a  minute  later  Mrs.  Winter  is  holding 
out  both  hands  to  a  tall,  grey-haired  man — Willie's  father. 
After  the  congratulations  were  over  Mr.  Gaynor  looked 
around  as  if  he  expected  to  see  someone  else,  and,  at  last, 
to  everyone's  astonishment,  asked  where  Willie  was. 

"Just  what  I  was  going  to  ask  you,"  replied  Mrs. 
Winter. 

"I  suppose  the  young  rascal  is  not  willing  to  go  home 
yet,"  continued  Mr.  Gaynor,  with  a  sly  glance  at  Ella, 
and  not  seeming  to  notice  Mrs.  Winter's  remark.  Ella 
returns  his  glance  with  one  of  blank  bewilderment,  and 
while  they  are  all  looking  askance  at  each  other  the  door 
bell  gets  a  peremptory  tug,  which  nearly  starts  them  all  to 
their  feet. 

' '  That's  his  ring,"  said  Mr.  Gaynor;  "  he  always  turns  it 
into  an  alarm."  Jane  opens  the  door  promptly  enough, 
but  afterwards  stands  rooted  to  the  ground  in  astonish 
ment,  as  "the  tramp"  stalks  past  her  and  goes  sans 
ceremonie  straight  towards  the  parlor.  She  retreated  to  the 


ONLY    A    TRAMP.  105 


kitchen  in  a  sort  of  stupor,  which  took  away  the  power  of 
thought.  The  worthy  woman  sinks  helplessly  into  a  chair. 
Meanwhile  the  cause  of  her  perplexity  is  endeavoring  to 
explain  how  his  love  of  adventure  induced  him  to  adopt  the 
role  of  tramp,  and  looks  as  contrite  as  the  laugh  in  his 
mischievous  brown  eyes  will  permit. 

"I  should  have  cautioned  you,  Margaret,"  said  Mr. 
Gaynor,  trying  to  look  severe.  "I  might  have  known  he 
would  do  something  of  the  kind.  You  young  rascal!"  he 
continued,  trying  to  concentrate  a  ferocious  glare  through 
his  spectacles  upon  the  culprit.  "  Even  his  own  father  is 
not  safe  from  his  pranks." 

Mrs.  Winter  protests  valiantly  that  she  knew  him  all  the 
time,  and  as  for  Ella,  she  flashes  one  reproachful  look  at 
him,  and  then  hides  a  very  crimson  face  among  the  pillows. 

"And  by  way  of  punishment  you  shall  march  home 
with  me  to-morrow,"  said  Mr.  Gaynor.  "I'm  certain 
these  ladies  won't  think  of  tolerating  you  any  longer." 

Willie  Gaynor  is  stooping  over  his  cousin  and  tries  to 
read  her  face,  which  is  a  difficult  task,  owing  to  the  dif 
ferent  feelings  which  have  been  depicted  thereon  for  the 
last  half  hour.  Her  heart,  which  has  been  eddying  round 
in  a  whirl  of  distress  for  the  last  month,  is  settling  down 
and  a  sense  of  rest,  and  peace  and  certainty  is  stealing 
upon  her,  but  a  little  throb  of  revenge  alone  mars  the 
present  still.  She  makes  a  silent  and  secret  vow  to  have 
satisfaction,  in  some  way,  for  this  joke,  of  which  she  has 
clearly  been  the  victim. 

"He  shall  never,  never  know  that  I  cared  for  him.  He 
shall  never  say  that  I  fell  in  love  with  a  'tramp. '"  And 
her  face  crimsoned  at  her  own  thoughts. 

"  You  will  not  send  me  away,"  said  he  in  a  low  voice, 
and  he  tries  to  take  her  hand.  "I  claim  pardon  on  the 


106  ONLY    A    TRAMP. 


score  of  at  least  one  good  service.  What  would  have 
become  of  you  if  I  had  not  been  playing  my  role  the  night 
of  your  accident  ?  Even  'tramps'  can  be  useful  some 
times,"  he  said. 

Her  anger  is  fading,  dying  miserably;  the  tell-tale  color 
comes  and  goes  beneath  his  glance,  making  her  face  an 
open  page. 

"Shall  I  go  home  with  father,  to-morrow?"  he  inquired 
softly. 

"You  ought  to,"  she  replied  petulantly,  making  a  last 
desperate  effort  to  appear  unconcerned.  "  You  have  lost 
a  whole  month  for  nothing,  and  scared  us  almost  to  death 
into  the  bargain." 

"A  whole  month  lost,"  he  answered  musingly,  not  seem 
ing  to  notice  her  last  sentence. 

The  belligerent  blood  came  into  her  cheeks  again,  as 
she  half  defined  his  meaning, 

"  What  will  people  think  ?"  she  resumed,  not  deigning 
to  notice  the  hint  conveyed  in  his  last  words.  "  What  will 
Jane  say  ?"  Here  a  faint  smile  betrayed  itself  in  the  cor 
ners  of  her  mouth,  as  the  intense  ludicrousness  of  the  situ 
ation  became  more  apparent. 

Willie  Gaynor  is  making  an  effort  to  assume  a  contrite 
expression,  but  at  this  juncture  he  laughs  outright. 

"As  for  Jane,  I  think,"  he  says,  "I  have  a  stout  ally  in 
/ier,  and  am  certain  that  s/ie,  at  least,  will  have  none  the 
less  welcome  for  me." 

There  is  little  more  to  be  said.  The  mischief-loving, 
prank-playing  tramp,  had  so  far  won  his  way  to  all  hearts 
at  the  cottage,  that  he  did  not  leave  it  until  he  carried  off 
the  owner  of  the  most  rebellious,  but  withal  the  most 
lovable  one. 


Sweet 


I  am  a  passionate  lover  of  music,  and  never  miss  an 
opportunity  of  gratifying  my  desires  in  that  respect.  A 
woman's  voice  in  song,  has  for  me,  a  peculiar  and  power 
ful  charm.  Under  its  influence  I  am  swayed,  entranced; 
my  faculties  become  enthralled  until  I  am  oblivious  to 
surroundings,  forgetful  of  past  and  present. 

Going  to  hear  a  debutante  fills  me  with  the  most  deli 
cious  anticipation.  My  friend,  the  young  Prince  de  N , 

had  asked  me  to  accompany  him  to^  hear  a  young  English 
artist  of  whom  great  things  had  been  promised. 

"  They  say  the  English  cantatrice  has  a  lovely  face 
also,"  observed  the  prince  that  evening,  as  we  sat  over  our 
coffee,  "  a  lovely  face  and  a  sweet  voice,"  he  murmured 
more  to  himself  than  to  me,  as  he  leaned  back  in  his 
chair,  and  gazed  through  the  heavy  fringes  of  his  half- 
closed  eyes  at  the  chandelier. 

This  Italian  was  a  handsome  fellow,  with  the  face  and 
form  of  an  Apollo,  fascinating  beyond  description,  bright, 
debonnaire,  and  gay — alas,  too  gay,  for  his  pleasures  were 
often  obtained  at  a  heavy  cost,  and  an  utter  disregard  of 
consequences.  Actresses,  young  and  pretty,  were  his  espe 
cial  prey,  and  as  I  watched  his  face  that  night,  I  sighed 
involuntarily  for  the  web  of  danger  which  was  certainly 
being  woven  for  one  more  woman. 

We  were  early  at  the  Port  Saint  Martine.    The  prince's 


I08  A    SWEET    SINGER. 


box,  close  to  the  stage,  was  a  marvel  of  silver  and  velvet  and 
glass  mirrors  multiplied  you  from  all  sides,  affording  ample 
and  elegant  views  of  back,  front  and  profile. 

The  curtain  had  not  yet  been  raised.  I  occupied  the 
spare  time  in  studying  the  prince,  which  was  an  easy  task, 
as  his  face  was  at  all  times  like  an  open  book;  he  never 
took  the  trouble  to  mask  his  feelings,  good  or  bad.  He 
spoke  but  little  to-night,  and  kept  his  eyes  continually 
upon  the  stage.  It  was  the  opera  of  "La  Sonnambula." 
;'  Amina  "  was  the  part  chosen  by  the  young  debutante, 
who  came  upon  the  stage  with  nervous  footsteps,  looking 
very  white  and  tremulous.  I  felt  a  pleasurable  disappoint 
ment.  The  sweet  cameo-like  face  was  quite  guiltless  of 
what  is  known  in  stage  parlance  as  "make  up,"  the 
youthful,  almost  childish  figure  was  clothed  in  an  inartis 
tic,  almost  clumsy  manner,  suggesting  nothing  of  the 
actress,  but  a  great  deal  of  what  was  pure  and  womanly. 

I  fancied  I  could  hear  a  murmur  of  disappointment  from 
the  vast  crowd.  The  effect  upon  the  generality  of  theatre 
goers  was  not  a  pleasing  one.  Most  people  expect  to  see — 
even  in  a  debutante — the  "  chic  "  and  stagy  style  to  which 
they  are  accustomed.  But  the  fancied  murmur  soon  died 
out  and  the  great  audience  held  an  expectant  breath.  She 
commenced  to  sing;  tremulously  came  the  notes  at  first, 
her  lips,  like  a  cupid's  bow,  trembled  pitifully  for  a 
moment  or  two,  then  the  wavering  words  grew  sweet  and 
strong,  soaring  upwards  as  if  the  music  bore  them  on  its 
wings,  sowing  the  air,  as  it  were,  with  wondrous  melody. 

What  an  awakener  of  sweet  and  sad  memories  is  a  sym 
pathetic  voice!  Truly  there  are  depths  within  our  hearts 
unsounded,  good  lying  deep  and  dormant,  to  which  only 
good  music,  pleading  and  passionate,  can  reach. 

The  pallid,  lily-like  face  was  transformed  now,  life  and 


A    SWEET    SINGER.  109 


light  shone  from  it,  faintly  at  first,  then  came  radiant  color 
to  the  cheeks,  and  the  large,  lustrous  eyes  seemed  to  emit 
light  from  their  lovely  depths. 

She  sang  as  if  her  very  soul  went  out  with  her  song;  the 
frail  figure  swayed  in  the  ecstasy  of  emotion;  she  looked 
and  must  have  felt,  like  a  goddess  of  music,  ready  to  im 
molate  herself  upon  the  altar  of  her  God. 

"Dios!"  exclaimed  the  prince,  whom  I  had  forgotten, 
and  who,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  oblivious  of  my  existence. 

"  What  a  voice,"  I  replied. 

Without  seeming  to  hear  me,  he  murmured,  "What  a 
face." 

There  must  have  been  a  serpent-like  fascination  about 
his  expression  just  then,  because  I  tried  to  turn  my  eyes  to 
the  stage,  but  they  seemed  riveted  upon  him. 

While  my  gaze  was  still  upon  his  face,  Amina  had  been 
discovered  in  the  Count's  chamber.  Her  pathetic  protes 
tations  of  innocence,  simple,  child-like,  though  powerful, 
crept  into  callous  hearts,  and  moistened  eyes  that  had  sel 
dom  known  a  tear.  I  am  a  man  of  the  world,  sinful, 
mayhap,  but  never  can  I  forget  the  feeling  of  pure  love 
and  charity  which  that  woman's  voice  created  in  my  hard 
ened  heart.  She  felt  the  part,  and  made  others  feelfor 
her;  you  knew  she  was  a  wronged  and  wretched  woman, 
sobbing  out  her  suffering  heart. 

Women  cried  audibly,  and  men  were  busy  with  their 
handkerchiefs;  by  an  effort  I  took  my  eyes  from  the  stage, 
and  turned  them  upon  the  prince.  Heaven!  what  a 
change  was  there.  I  scarcely  recognized  my  friend  of 
fifteen  years.  Amazement  was  so  visible  upon  my  face  that 
he  must  have  seen  it,  for  he  looked  uneasily  at  me  and 
turned  away.  His  face  was  haggard  and  old,  great  drops 
of  perspiration  stood  out  upon  his  forehead,  and  a  strange 


110  A    SWEET    SINGER. 


light,  which  I  had  never  seen  before,  was  in  his  eyes.  His 
thoughts  were  evidently  far  away,  for  I  spoke  to  him  and 
he  never  heard  me. 

I  felt  alarmed,  and  shook  him  by  the  arm.  He  came  to 
himself  with  an  effort,  and  grasped  my  hand  in  seeming 
gratitude,  then  he  put  the  other  hand  to  his  forehead  with 
an  air  of  weariness  and  begged  me  to  accompany  him 
home. 

The  opera  was  not  yet  over,  but  he  did  not  seem  to 
care.  I  looked  once  more  at  Amina,  and  involuntarily 
closed  my  eyes  so  they  could  retain  the  last  glimpse  of  her. 

That  the  prince  had  undergone  some  great  mental 
change,  was  apparent.  What  memories  of  remorse  that 
singer's  face  and  voice  might  have  brought  vividly  back  to 
him,  even  I,  his  bosom  friend,  never  knew. 

I  lost  sight  of  him  for  many  days;  at  length  he  sought 
me.  He  was  very  pale  and  quiet,  with  traces  of  suffering 
on  his  handsome  face. 

"  Pierre,  I  am  going  to  see  the  English  Madamoiselle," 
he  said,  "  Will  you  come  with  me?" 

I  replied,  "  Certainly." 

Would  I  be  ready  in  an  hour?  Yes.  I  thought  of  many 
things  within  that  hour.  Times  were  when  this  man  would 
have  been  in  the  "green  room  "the  very  first  night,  and  it 
was  a  rare  case,  indeed,  when  the  prima  donna's  name  was 
not  linked  with  his  through  the  mud  and  mire  of  Paris  next 
day.  I  dreaded  nothing  of  the  kind  now,  and  yet  I  could 
wish  that  he  might  not  meet  her. 

We  were  soon  at  Miss  R 's  hotel,  sent  up  our  cards, 

and  found  ourselves  confronted  by  the  manager  a 
suave  and  smiling  little  Frenchman,  who  declared  himself 
"  heartbroken  because  he  could  not  induce  the  beautiful 
English  madamoiselle  to  be  honored  by  an  interview  with 


^tBR^ff) 

OF   THB 

UNIVERSr 

A    SWEET    SINGER.  II 


us."  In  words  which  were  honied  over,  as  it  were,  he 
vaguely  intimated  "  that  slanderous  tongues  (no  doubt)  had 
linked  our  illustrious  names,  with  deeds  which  he  would  be  a 
monster  to  credit,  but  alas!  you  know,  messieurs,  ho*v 
easily  a  woman  believes,"  and  with  a  heavenly  smile  which 
was  beautifully  tinged  with  a  becoming  shade  of  sorrow, 
he  bowed  us  out. 

The  prince  was  miserable  and  I  had  a  fellow  feeling  for 
him.  We  watched  her  day  by  day,  walking  and  riding  in 
the  parks;  he  was  never  absent  irom  his  post,  and  my  pity 
for  him  grew  stronger,  for  I  knew  that  my  love  for  her  was 
but  a  shadow  compared  with  his.  Yes,  I  dared  to  love 
her  that  first  night,  and  yet,  if  I  could,  I  would  not  touch 
the  hem  of  her  garment. 

I  began  to  fear  for  the  prince's  reason  and  made  the 
most  extraordinary  efforts  to  get  him  introduced,  but  all  to 
no  purpose. 

Things  went  on  in  this  way  till  at  length  he  rushed  into 
my  room  one  day;  his  eyes  flashed  with  some  of  their  old 
brilliancy,  and  his  cheeks  were  flushed  with  excitement. 

'  'I  have  it  at  last,"  exclaimed  he.  "  Oh,  my  good  friend, 
you  will  help  me,  you  must  help  me." 

I  grasped  him — he  was  weak  as  a  child — and  made  him 
sit  down.  He  held  on  to  my  hand  and  looked  up  beseech 
ingly. 

"I  can  sing,  Pierre,"  he  continued,  "I  used  to  sing 
well — I  can  do  so  again.  They  want  a  tenor — I  will  pre 
sent  myself — I  will  disguise — they  will  never  know  me. 
Pierre,  don't  stop  me,"  he  begged,  seeing  signs  of  disap 
proval  in  my  face.  "I  shall  and  must." 

I  promised  to  help  him  and  he  grew  calm,  then  going  to 
the  piano  he  commenced  to  play  snatches  of  opera, 
then  he  drifted  into  the  old  ballads  of  the  "  Vandeville." 


112  A    SWEET    SINGER. 


He  had  an  exquisite  voice,  and  yet  I  had  never  heard  him 
sing. 

He  made  his  application  and  strangely  enough  was 
"accepted.  When  he  came  to  me  again  I  scarcely  knew 
him.  He  was  minus  the  handsomest  mustache  in  Paris, 
but  a  whole  sun  of  happiness  shone  from  his  face. 

"I  have  seen  her,  oh,  Pierre,  and  she  has  heard  me 
sing,  and  praised  me."  He  would  be  with  her,  near  her, 
and  that  was  heaven  enough  for  him. 

Oh,  love,  what  a  powerful  factor  thou  art  for  good  or  for 
evil!  After  he  left  me,  a  miserable  pang  of  jealousy  made 
a  contemptible  wretch  of  me,  but  I  fought  against  it.  The 
little  good  in  me  asserted  itself  and  I  was  soon  able  to  re 
joice  in  my  friend's  joy. 

He  traveled  and  sang  with  her  for  two  years.  ' '  This 
woman,"  he  wrote  to  me,  "  has  taught  me  how  to  live — 
how  to  love.  She  is  a  bright  light  upon  my  path  without 
which  I  must  have  forever  groped  amidst  the  dead  sea 
fruit  of  a  misspent  life. 

Eventually  he  won  his  way  to  the  heart  of  the  prima 
donna,  who  never  knew  that  she  was  marrying  the  Prince 

de  N- until  the  eve  of  her  nuptials  in  London,  when  I 

had  the  happiness  to  be  present. 


Sfokeq  fiekit 


Down  in  the  heart  of  Kent,  that  most  beautiful  of 
English  counties  stands  the  grand  old  Norman  castle  of 
Avonleigh.  Built  upon  a  gentle  elevation,  it  commands  a 
splendid  view  of  the  richest  scenery,  broad  stretches  of 
forest,  whose  giant  trees  dwindle  into  mere  atoms  in  the 
distance,  gently  undulating  hills,  merging  into  the  bluest 
skies,  with  here  and  there  a  tiny  glimpse  of  silver  sea. 

It  was  the  eve  of  that  most  disastrous  internal  struggle 
"The  War  of  the  Roses,"  when  the  fair  flag  of  England 
was  stained  with  the  blood  of  her  noblest  sons.  Lord 
John  de  Grey,  the  master  of  Avonleigh,  had  already  de 
clared  himself  a  warm  adherent  of  the  house  of  York,  and 
when  the  tide  of  war  mingled  its  turbulent  stream  with  the 
pure  and  peaceful  waters  of  domestic  life,  the  grey-haired 
earl  was  found  fighting  bravely  beside  his  only  son. 

A  mellow  day  in  autumn  is  drawing  to  a  close;  the  soft 
light  of  a  harvest  moon  is  contending  for  supremacy  with 
the  shadows  of  a  sinking  sun.  In  a  little  while  the  castle 
is  bathed  in  the  tender  moonlight,  the  clinging  ivy  leaves 
glisten  like  silver  and  tremble  from  the  faintest  perfumed 
breeze. 

The  earl's  only  daughter,  Lady  Miriam,  a  fair-haired 
maiden,  with  a  wondrously  beautiful  face,  is  down  in  the 
quaint  old  garden,  drawn  thither  by  the  singular  beauty  of 
the  night;  and,  verily,  moon  never  shone  upon  fairer  form 


114  A    BROKEN    HEART. 


than  hers,  and  the  flowers  sent  forth  their  sleeping  incense 
to  greet  this  living  "  Rose  of  Avonleigh." 

As  she  stoops  to  pluck  a  white  rose  from  its  thorny  stem, 
the  delicate  finger  was  pierced  and  a  crimson  drop  stained 
the  rose's  purity,  but  no  murmur  escaped  her,  and  gather 
ing  up  the  folds  of  her  white  robe,  she  walked  slowly  back 
to  the  castle. 

Young  and  beautiful,  surrounded  with  wealth  and  pleas 
ures,  this  young  girl  knew  not  what  unhappiness  meant; 
like  a  bird  whose  gilded  cage  protects  and  shelters  her, 
life,  indeed,  was  all  sunshine  without  a  shadow. 

Though  rumors  of  war  were  in  the  air,  and  men  spoke 
in  serious  tones  of  the  strife  which  seemed  inevitable,  no 
thought  of  danger  marred  the  calm  happiness  of  her  exis 
tence. 

Already  she  had  given  her  heart  to  young  Wilfred 
Aylmer,  as  brave  and  handsome  a  youth  as  the  sun  ever 
shone  upon,  and  whose  strong  young  arm  shall  also  be 
wielded  in  the  cause  of  the  noble  house  of  York. 

Through  the  wide,  dimly-lighted  hallway  Lady  Miriam 
walked  slowly  and  almost  unconsciously,  clasping  the  now 
half-crimsoned  rose  to  her  bosom,  until  she  reached  her 
father's  study. 

The  old  earl  sat  in  profound  thought,  and  did  not  heed 
the  soft  footfall  until  a  tender  cheek  was  laid  against  his 
own. 

"What  a  dark,  brown  study  my  dear  father  is  in,"  mur 
mured  the  sweet  voice. 

The  earl's  face  was  seamed  and  shadowed  with  care  as 
he  lifted  his  head,  and  a  sudden  paleness  overspread  his 
features  when  he  saw  the  white  rose  which  she  laughingly 
held  up  to  his  gaze. 

"I  was  thinking  of  you,  my  pearl,"  he  replied,  drawing 


A    BROKEN    HEART.  I  15 

the  fair  head  down  to  him,  and  kissing  the  sweet,  childish 
mouth,  "but  now  that  you  are  here,"  he  added,  "like  a 
gleam  of  sunlight  among  my  shadows,  I  am  no  longer 
sad."  But  seeing  a  shade  of  pain  in  her  eyes,  he  added 
hastily: 

"I  was  indeed  thinking  of  the  time  when  someone  would 
rob  me  of  the  fairest  flower  in  my  garden  of  roses." 

Shechided  him  lovingly  for  "thinking  too  soon,  "and  with 
her  accustomed  prayer  and  good-night  kiss,  left  him. 

Up  the  wide  staircase  she  goes,  slowly  and  thoughtfully, 
now  through  the  great  picture  gallery,  where  the  old- 
fashioned  but  beautiful  faces  of  other  Lady  Miriams  looked 
down  upon  her.  Was  it  the  weird  moonlight  that  made 
those  dead  faces  seem  to  bend  from  their  stiff  frames  and 
cause  a  gleam  of  sadness  to  light  the  dead  eyes  that  seemed 
to  follow  her  as  she  passed  beneath  them  ? 

She  soon  reached  her  favorite  room,  high  in  the  west 
wing,  a  cozy  nook,  where  she  loved  to  look  upon  the  moon 
light  scene  without,  and  inhale  the  faint  fragrance  of  the 
garden  beneath. 

Lady  Miriam's  life  had  indeed  been  like  to  the  unruffled 
bosom  of  a  clear,  calm  lake.  Her  placid  bosom  had  never 
been  disturbed  by  a  sad  thought.  True,  within  the  past 
few  months  her  heart  had  awakened,  bud-like,  to  the  new 
and  sweet  knowledge  of  another  love.  That  very  morning 
she  had  been  plighted  to  Sir  Wilfred  Aylmer,  and  their 
marriage  would  be  solemnized  when  this  war-cloud  had 
rolled  past. 

Long  and  sadly  the  earl  mused  that  night;  his  heart  was 
full  of  foreboding  of  coming  sorrow.  What  if  in  this  war, 
which  every  day  seemed  more  imminent,  he  should  fall  ? 
What  if  this,  his  one  ewe  lamb,  should  be  orphaned — 
desolate  ?  He  tried  to  drive  away  his  gloomy  imaginings 


Il6  A    BROKEN    HEART. 

by  recalling  the  sweet  face  of  her  who  had  just  left  him 
with  words  of  love  and  hope,  and  prayed  that  this  "  bitter 
chalice"  might  pass  away. 

But.  alas!  a  month  later  saw  the  rival  parties  engaged 
in  determined  and  deadly  strife — saw  also  the  white-haired 
earl  and  his  son  fighting  side  by  side  with  young  Wilfred 
Aylmer. 

Oh,  selfish  kings  and  avaricious  princes,  how  little  ye 
reck  the  cost  of  your  crowns! — how  little  ye  care!  News 
traveled  slowly  in  those  days,  but  mediaeval  maidens  did 
not  sigh  and  pine  like  us  of  modern  times,  but  looked 
hopefully  for  the  triumphant  return  of  their  victors,  their 
minds  being  molded  and  tinted  by  their  warlike  surround 
ings,  Battles  boded  only  an  access  of  honor  and  glory. 

Rumors  at  length  reached  Avonleigh  that  a  great  and 
decisive  battle  had  been  fought,  in  which  the  house  of 
York  had  triumphed.  Preparations  on  a  magnificent  scale 
had  commenced  at  the  castle  for  the  return  of  the  victors. 
Joy  bells  rang  from  every  steeple  and  belfry  in  the  village. 
All  were  jubilant  in  the  belief  that  their  noble  lord  was 
coming  home  covered  with  honors.  Ah,  but  here  was  a 
messenger  at  last  riding  in  hot  haste,  who  looked  neither 
to  the  right  nor  the  left  as  he  rode  past  the  gay  banners 
and  the  resounding  cheers  of  the  happy  villagers.  Both 
horse  and  man  were  sore,  jaded,  and  covered  with  foam 
from  long  and  continued  riding,  but  he  never  drew  rein 
until  he  reached  the  castle,  whose  gates  are  thrown  wide 
open,  bar  and  bolt  giving  way  to  graceful  arches  and 
emblems  of  welcome. 

In  the  outer  courtyard  he  flings  the  reins  to  a  servant, 
who  stares  at  him  in  silent  wonder.  Another  astonished 
lackey  is  requested  to  lead  him  to  the  presence  of  the 
Lady  Miriam. 


A    BROKEN    HEART.  1 17 


Through  gorgeously  decorated  halls,  where  the  air  is 
heavy  with  the  odor  of  flowers,  huge  vases  of  white  roses 
greet  the  eye  at  every  step,  dropping,  as  if  in  welcome, 
their  rich  petals  at  his  feet.  Truly  the  fairest  and  fittest 
welcome  to  the  victor. 

Geoffry  Vane  was  a  brave  gentleman  and  a  gallant 
soldier,  who  had  often  confronted  death  in  many  shapes — 
a  man  to  whom  fear  was  a  word  without  meaning — yet  to 
day  his  heart  sank  weakly  and  his  limbs  trembled  as  the 
rustle  of  a  woman's  dress  fell  upon  his  ears.  In  another 
moment  he  is  bending  low  before  Miriam  Grey,  who  is 
his  cousin,  and  whom  he  has  never  seen  until  to-day. 

There  is  a  glad  and  gracious  welcome  in  her  face  and 
her  voice  as  she  holds  out  her  hands  to  him.  Ah!  how  can 
he  tell  her  the  story  which  may  quench  the  light  in  those 
bright  eyes  forever,  or  mayhap  chill  to  death  the  white 
hand  now  lying  in  his  own! 

Oh,  victorious  white  rose,  whose  beauty  is  sullied  by 
the  life-blood  of  father,  lover,  and  brother,  well  may  you 
droop  your  heads  in  the  great  halls  below,  and  shed  your 
pale  leaves  in  pity  for  her  whose  peerless  head  is  well-nigh 
leveled  with  the  dust.  Aye,  this  day  of  glorious  victory 

brings  grief  unutterable  to  the  now  desolate  Lady  Miriam. 

* 

*  * 

The  red  October  winds  are  sighing  among  the  gables  and 
turrets  of  the  castle,  whispering  the  woeful  tale  to  the  leaf 
less  trees  and  dead  flowers.  The  crimson  and  gold  leaves 
are  being  buried  beneath  the  snow  which  is  piling  high 
above  them,  and  all  nature  puts  on  her  saddest  garb  as  the 
magnificent  mausoleum  at  Avonleigh  closes  its  ponderous 
doors  upon  the  dead  victors. 

Like  a  white  shadow  the  hapless  Lady  Miriam  paces 
ever  through  the  lonely  halls  and  galleries,  where  the  dead 


Il8  A    BROKEN    HEART. 

roses  are  still  untouched.  No  hand  has  been  allowed  to 
remove  the  withered  emblems  of  welcome  since  that  fatal 
day. 

Frozen  and  cold  as  the  beauteous  eidelweiss  she  has 
buried  herself  from  the  world.  Patiently  and  hopelessly 
has  Geoffry  Vane  tried  to  warm  the  dead  heart  to  life. 
Long  and  tenderly  he  has  hoped  that  the  stricken  heart- 
tendrils  might  revive  and  bloom  again  in  the  sunshine  of 
his  love. 

* 

*  * 

The  spring-time  has  come  again  with  its  soft  blue  skies. 
The  tender  flower  buds  are  unfolding  to  the  sun-god, 
whose  breath  nurses  them  from  the  brown  bosom  of  the 
earth.  The  summer  has  come  with  all  its  gladness,  but 
yet  no  bloom  comes  to  the  cheeks  of  the  widowed  girl — 
no  brightness  to  the  sad  eyes. 

* 

*  * 

Again  the  October  moon  is  bathing  the  castle  of  Avon- 
leigh  in  its  yellow  light,  flinging  grotesque  shadows  upon  the 
stately  mausoleum,  and  the  dying  flowers  are  sending  forth 
their  last  perfumed  sigh  ere  the  rude  touch  of  winter  comes 
upon  them.  Up  in  her  boudoir  the  golden  head  is  bowed 
in  prayer;  she  hears  not  a  footstep  until  Geoffry  Vane 
utters  her  name  reverently.  She  lifts  her  head,  looking 
at  him  with  eyes  which  seem  to  emit  the  very  light  of 
heaven  itself.  His  heart  bounds  with  a  great  joy.  At 
last  she  is  awaking  to  his  patient  love.  The  cold  hands 
are  not  withdrawn  from  his  now.  For  the  first  time  the 
weary  head  is  resting  against  his  heart.  At  last  his  unwearied 
love  has  found  an  echo  in  the  sweet  bosom  and  moistened 
the  parched  heart.  The  lips  which  his  warm  kisses  fall 
upon  for  the  first  time  are  cold,  but  oh,  the  love  and  life 


A    P.ROKEN    HEART. 


and  promise  that  he  sees  in  the  ineffable  smile  with  which 
she  tries  to  'reward  him!     It  was  truly 

A  moment's  gleam  of  sun, 

Sweetening  the  very  edge  of  doom; 
The  past,  the  present — all  that  fate 
Can  bring  of  dark  or  desperate 

Around  such  hours, 
But  make  them  cast 
Intenser  radiance  while  they  last. 

Speechless  with  his  great  happiness  he  holds  her  closely 
in  his  arms.  For  one  brief  moment  the  beautiful  lips  are 
upraised  to  his,  and  in  that  one  long  kiss  the  wounded 
white  rose  breathes  her  last  loving  sigh,  and  Geoffry  Vane 
holds  the  dead  Lady  Miriam  in  his  close  embrace. 


' 


h*"' 


